Re: Flow Chart Tools?

[Bill Bledsoe <bill -dot- bledsoe -at- CMS-STL -dot- COM>]

Diane, All,

I've used Visual Thought for both the OOAD stuff that Wendy mentions, and
for other drawing duties... it is the most complete package out there
IHMO... and has seamless integration with Framemaker as a plus.  Works with
Word as well.   but... it was not cheap on the UNIX platform at least...
$3000 at least for 5 licenses...

What power it trades off with Visual Thought...  Visio makes up in being
extremely easy to use.  Visio integrates well with Word, and does some nifty
HTML conversion features (including Clickable Image Maps as I recall in the
latest versions.)

hope this helps...

Wendy Phillips wrote:

> For purposes of designing software, however, a developer would
> probably want to use a Computer Aided Engineering (CASE) tool that helps
> him/her create Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs).  (An ERD is a type
> of flowchart that specifies the relationships between entities,
> attributes, and relationships in a software/business system.)  A couple
> examples of CASE tools are Oracle's Developer 2000 (non-object oriented)
> and Rational Rose (object-oriented).  I haven't used any CASE tools
> personally (yet) so I'm afraid I can't offer a recommendation on which
> is best for what.  Are they any Techwhirlers on the list who can make a
> recommendation?

well... the current debate in our shop is whether or not to go with
ObjectTeam or Rational's Suite for a new OOAD inititive here...  it is the
first OOAD effort for the shop so... they're proceeding cautiously on tool
selection.   I'd suppose though that the one thing that you'd be looking for
at this point was a tool that used the UML as its notation language (UML
stands for Unified Markup Language I believe...  it is a combination of
Jacobsen/Booch/Rumbaugh notational standards for OOAD documentation).
hope this helps...
--
****************************************************
Bill Bledsoe
Senior Technical Writer - CMS
Bill -dot- Bledsoe -at- cms-stl -dot- com or intlidox -at- anet-stl -dot- com

Prediction 4
"The people who are studying Tai Chi Chuan instead
of saving money are planning to beat us up and take
our stuff when we've retired"

Scott Adams - The Dilbert Future
****************************************************
If Bill Said it, Bill said it... Not CMS.  Got it?
****************************************************