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Sun Opens Modeling Tools
twofish writes "According to the Register, Sun is set to open source a few modeling tools, including their UML modeler, XML infrastructure and visual editing tools, and BPEL tools. The software, part of the planned Java Studio Enterprise 9.0, will made available for download as part of Sun's NetBeans Enterprise Pack." From the article: "By open sourcing its UML tools Sun is continuing its push against the rival Eclipse open source tools framework. The Eclipse Foundation has pushed UML and model-driven architectures for some time via the Eclipse Tools Project. The project encompasses an open source implementation of UML, called UML2, and a modeling framework and code-generation facility to build tools and applications that use a structured data model - called the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF)."
EMF? You're unbelievable!
There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
I see there are some XML tools included in this offering. I haven't been able to find out if there is a decent XML Schema editor included. I would really like to get a free XML Schema editor that is as good as XMLSpy.
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
For the benefit of the grouchy mod that didn't find this funny, EMF were a UK band who had a chart-topping hit - "Unbelievable".
Made me laugh anyway - sorry, no mod points today.
Very intriguing.
As a starving non-pro, my exposure to UML has been the MS Visio implementation.
Visio is a great tool, up until you'd like to do something with the UML that wasn't intended by the authors, like writing a custom report against the model. Then you get that sad "I am baked" feeling.
A robust, open tool would be welcome.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Sadly there is no visual component to this. It's simply the framework. I'm still using Argo. http://argouml.tigris.org/
www.bannination.com Two things float to the top he
Well I've used UML on every large project I've worked on since about 1999 and its been absolutely invaluable. Obviously its not the only way of communicating design but it is
a) Understood by most systems designers
b) Under by pretty much every developer I work with
c) Specific enough to be able to communicate fairly complex designs with, generic enough that it lends itself well to things (like distributed asynchronous messaging based systems) that it wasn't designed for.
Beats the hell out of re-inventing the wheel...
As an aside twofish - nice tunes...
The NetBeans tools may be great, but NetBeans' time has passed. Eclipse now has very strong momentum. Eclipse is the non-Microsoft market, sparked by IBM, that tool vendors can come to, play in, and profit from. I don't think Sun can recapture industry focus from Eclipse; that focus is the Eclipse Foundation's to lose.
Looking at it from the developer's standpoint; use the tools that best fit the job, when you can. But this move is about battling ecosystems. Sun ought to join in and work with Eclipse.
I am quite surprised that sun is spending so much money on software while its core copetency is in hardware. they paid tons for Forte, Netbeans, Seebeyond, Staroffice and has a huge software group. Other than Java and Solaris-10, not many people pay for any of the Sun software. Oracle, IBM, Microsoft have huge enterprise customer base from where they get majority of the revenue and use this to provide free developer tools and other free goodies, but what does Sun have? I guess, a way for Sun to achieve profitability would be to get rid off all software teams except Solaris, Java and focus on their hardware business. They should at AMD for some guidance. It stuck to its core business and today it is Intel whose stock price is very low while AMD is close to historically high.
It'll be a cold day in hell before Sun releases the source code to any software that people actually use.
Badass Resumes
Let's not forget the Visual Editor!
http://www.eclipse.org/vep
Way better than NetBeans Editor
UML use is quite common in the java/j2ee world, though there's like two dozen methodologies that are no better or worse. One problem with UML (that the committee is working on) is it doesn't model parallel or multithreaded processes too well, and a realistic multi-tier architecture probably needs some of that in the model. It's also funny how the disciples think, how can you possibly have a large project without UML (or java/j2ee for that matter). One good thing (or awful thing) about the large UML tools out there is that they do let non-technical people such as business analysts participate in the design process
Yes. Code generation. Not the blank set/get crap, but stuff that makes db calls, handles security, etc., all of it modeled in UML, and automatically generated. Of course, the development effort is mostly writing the generator... but then the 2nd similar project is just playing with UML instead of recoding all that boring db stuff.
The advances in the Java IDE space over the last four years have been fantastic. Whether you are a fan of Netbeans, Eclipse, another IDE, or even if you don't use Java, this competition should be a nice reminder of how a working market produces innovative products at a nice pace. (AMD vs. Intel is another example.)
... only one manufacturer for OS-X.
It is a sad reminder of Microsoft's (criminal) monopoly, and the governments unwillingness to intervene, that for the vast majority of consumers, there has been very little of this "competitive energy" in the Operating System space. Sure, they can buy an Apple, but even there
I'm running a nice 3-d enhanced desktop (Xgl) in Linux, but I see Windows users have another six months, minimum, to see anything comperable.
Imagine what the tech world would be like if the Operating System market was as competitive as NetBeans vs. Eclipse.
These are developer tools. Their sourcecode is open. Their consumers are developers.
Where's the adapter code that plugs each development platform's modules into the other's framework? This is the best case for open software discarding arbitrary vendor boundaries I've ever heard.
--
make install -not war
A tool, only in the derogatory sense of the word
Thank you Sun!
pssst... I have a secret for you... companies that do things purely out of altruism don't exist for long. Of course Sun is doing Java to benefit Sun. Otherwise the shareholds sure would be pissed!
Why do some people think that companies trying to make money is a dirty little secret? Its the whole point!
Jeremy
I don't have a problem with a company making money off of a product. I have a problem with a company actively subverting other people's altruism in order to maintain a stranglehold on profit. Don't confuse me with an open-source-only hippie, but at the same time the Eclipse people deserve better than Sun trying to flush them out just to keep Java on a tight leash.
I was always under the impression that UML's biggest purpose is not the design of a project, but rather so programmers can more easily communicate concepts of a project's architecture to the dummies at the same company who don't know anything about programming or design. Marketers, for example.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've certainly had no need to use UML in any of my projects.
Slashdot requires you to wait longer between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
It'll be a cold day in hell before Sun releases the source code to any software that people actually use.
You mean like source to the jdk, j2ee, and various reference implementations?
Yeah, because *nobody* is using Java. Brr!.
So where's my Sun Model Hotties Calendar?
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
It'll be a cold day in hell before Sun releases the source code to any software that people actually use.
You have got to be joking. Apart from the fact that anyone can download the source code for Java, they have open sourced huge amounts. Solaris is very widely used, especially in commercial environments. NetBeans is a very widely used Java IDE, and there is, of course Open Office.
Yeah, and water is wet. You have a point somewhere there?
pfft... Java?
If it isn't Linux and in straight C it's crap and not worthy of my esteemed time.
all other programmers are lazy
Eclipse is doing another microsft: success on looks and marketing. Netbeans beats eclipse on functionality. Eclipse is nothing more than an advanced editor that provides code completion, integrated debugging and looks good. For any serious JAVA work , e.g., J2EE, J2ME work eclipse is useless. Getting code completion in JSP, and debugging J2EE apps to work is a pain in eclipse. Eclipse lacks the support for template applications that make it so easy to start the work. For all serious JAVA functionality eclipse depends on plugins. And well-supported plugins are rare. Netbeans provides tightly integrated support for J2EE and J2ME along with the option of extending the IDE using plugins.
Sorry, they run only on an abacus. Thankfully, UML is 2-D, because the 3-D acceleration routines cause carpal tunnel syndrome after abour four hours of modeling. In 2-D, well trained abacus operators can run at least 12 hours, covering a good work day.
I moved to Netbeans from Eclipse. Eclipse *was* the best IDE in existence, bar none. I personally find that since NB4.1, Netbeans is a better IDE - at least for the work I do. I find it much easier to work with.
The fact is that NB has a good chunk of the IDE space and has been trending up recently. It's far from out of the picture.
It's also where innovation has been happening recently - Matisse, the UML and BIPL tools. Eclipse has been positively stagnant by comparison.
There has always been need for a great open source UML modeling tool, hopefully people will start designing 'more' with tools like this readily available. Other tools experience:
Thank you Sun for helping the developer community.
Ding Ding - Wrong, but thanks for playing!
g uage
Unified Modelling language is used by Analysts, Architects and QA to ensure that an application will support the user or business processes that are required for the organization. It is best if it is used from the Requirements gathering stage onwards.
Use Cases are used to determine Actors (Objects) and Actions (methods) and to identify business rules and requrements which may need to be enforced programmatically. The use cases will result in specifications, which go to the developers, and Diagrams, which can be shown to the users and stakeholders to illustrate exactly what the system being designed will do.
If your software development efforts have NOT been user-facing, or have not needed to fulfill some business or operational function you may not have been exposed to UML where it is the most used and useful.
Check Wikipedia for more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Modeling_Lan
Cheers
Since Java Studio Enterprise lack support for Mac OS X but NetBeans doesn't.
Cause we really wanted what Microsoft had 2 years ago to have been released at that time... *shudder*
Ah, a witty statement meant to slam Sun because all they sell are SPARC systems and their software and OS only run on SPARC systems. By your masterful analysis of TFA, you've gleaned that the software environment discussed in this article is SPARC-only because Sun has no idea how to come up with something that runs on anything but SPARC. Good one!
I believe the GP meant "release the source" as in set it free. That's different from making it available to look at but not touch and not redistribute. Mustang is certainly not free (as in free) or open source.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
I just don't understand where the anymosity comes from. It's not like sun is out there doing violence to the OSS community or anything.
No, I was thinking more along the lines of razor blades where the handle is given away for almost nothing. Since Sun now a software company, maybe they should give the hardware away. Seems like every time I come across an older SPARC system, someone is giving them away.
Open source is the passion of those who can't accept reality.
You're not going to replace Unix, you're not going to replace Windows.
Understand the guard at the gate of Oz.
"Nobody gets in to see the Wizard, not nobody, not anytime".
I'm an outsider here as I don't like Java at all but Sun has forthrightly stated, at least in the software developement publications that I read that this is no way, shape, or form their intent. They (now) openly acknowledge that Eclipse seems to be the framework/IDE of choice of the Java community (at least you people have a by God real community, too!) but they intend to provide the NetBeans IDE as an alternative to those that like it (and I know of more than a few top name developers that I read that like it).
FWIW, I take them at their word. Y'all have a nice day.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
Just my $0.02
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
After all these years, Sun still does not have a programming language that includes function composition, tail call optimization, type deduction, referential transparency, logical types, operator overloading & specification, compile-time/meta programming etc.
Great! Now go back to your memory-leaking, buffer overrrun-vulnerable C++ and oh-so-modern CORBA tools.
Apart from OpenOffice, NetBeans, NFS, OpenSolaris big chunks of most Linux distributions (last time anyone counted RedHat contained more source attributed to by Sun than any other entity except FSF), cubic spline, etc etc etc etc.
Wow. I'd love to see you try and get the sales people on my team to read your predicate calculus user requirements. Talk about living in different worlds...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
All my work at this level is with SMB's or, in the past, the military and government agencies. SMB's won't have a clue what you are doing anyway, usually, so moot point. The military, or at least the people I worked for, loved the technique as I could prove mathematical correctness. Lives depended on my work. The government agencies would be problematic today as they like UML/UML2, but in the past they liked mathematical correctness as well since all that work was in the medical field and again lives depended on my work.
Someday, I'll have to learn these beasts. I do have the books and tools (Rational Rose, etc.), but UML/UML2 still allows you to dig yourself into logical and mathematical traps if you aren't careful. Actually in pretty much the same way that standard flow-charting does which is why I invented my structured flow-charting technique. Still, it's the tool of the day which probably explains why I haven't taken on any projects of late [save my enterprise beta work and network security].
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go