Open Source Design Tools?

Posted by Cliff on Wednesday April 30, 2003 @11:11PM from the planning-before-implementation dept.

mbogosian asks: "Recently, my broadened responsibilities have me doing some database design and modeling, and I'm happy for the new knowledge and experience, but I'm a bit frustrated about the tool selection. I know most of us have had plenty of experience with at least a handful of all the wonderful Open Source development tools out there (like GCC, GNU Make, Subversion , and Perl to name a few). My question is this: where are OpenSource design tools? I've tried what I could find on SourceForge, but (as usual?) most of the projects that sounded promising were either still in the planning stages or seemed abandoned. Of course something which allowed be to create nifty class charts and output them to UML and/or SQL would be really cool, but I've yet to find something that works (especially in Linux). What are your favorite Open Source design tools and what do you like about them?"

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Right tool for the job by sql*kitten · 2003-05-01 00:15 · Score: 0, Offtopic

My question is this: where are OpenSource design tools? I've tried what I could find on SourceForge, but (as usual?) most of the projects that sounded promising were either still in the planning stages or seemed abandoned. Of course something which allowed be to create nifty class charts and output them to UML and/or SQL would be really cool, but I've yet to find something that works (especially in Linux). What are your favorite Open Source design tools and what do you like about them?"

It's a matter of using the right tool for the job. Example: the Linux kernel developers use proprietary BitKeeper rather than free CVS, because BitKeeper is simply a better tool. Using a free tool just because it is free is a poor decision, because it will cost you more in the long term in lost productivity. In this case, there are no open source design tools because there are no open source applications that have complex schemas (say 100 tables or more). Plus there is an unfortunate attitude that still permeates open source "real men start coding, only corporate minions do UML".

If you need a good tool, try Oracle Designer or Together/J, or since IBM are Linux's new best friend, you might want to look at Rose. I guess if you are cheap you could use Visio.