Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture For Dummies

Choosing Your Design Tools

While you develop software architecture, you have many discussions with customers, other architects, and designers about the problem, the expectations for the system, and the requirements. During these discussions, you come up with some initial ideas and start taking notes for your architectural document, as I discuss in Chapter 2. Eventually you'll show your architectural designs to these people, however, so you need to be sure that they can understand your diagrams — a task that's made much easier when you use a standardized notation language like UML. After all, the old saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” applies in architecture, too.

Many software tools enable you to draw your designs. Having a good electronic repository of architectural views — such as class diagrams, interaction diagrams, and packaging diagrams — will help you keep your documentation in good shape. The tools help you connect the pieces and keep the big picture straight in your mind.

The tools dedicated to UML diagramming actually give you the capability to build your model of the whole system. The diagrams that are essential to explain your architecture are just views into the model.

Commercial software-development tools

Several commercial tools are available to create the diagrams described earlier in this chapter, like IBM's Rational Software Architect. Some free products, such as Astah (see “Free UML tools,” later in this chapter), are also available in commercial versions ...