Borland Software Corp. last week announced the availability of the latest release of its Together suite of modeling tools for Microsoft Corp.s Visual Studio .Net.
Borland announced Together 2005 for Microsofts Visual Studio .Net, which now offers UML (Unified Modeling Language) 2.0 support for the development environment.
“Well be the bridge between the UML world and those companies that want to do DSLs [domain-specific languages],” said Marc Brown, director of product management at Borland, based in Scotts Valley, Calif. “This gives organizations the flexibility to use both modeling paradigms. Microsoft is not providing any way to visualize C# and Visual Basic .Net code in UML.”
Borland officials said the new Together suite acts as a link between Microsofts modeling schemes with DSLs and Software Factories and UML versions 1.4 and 2.0.
The new suite includes Together Developer 2005 and Together Designer 2005, both for Visual Studio .Net. Together Developer features VB .Net support, C# metrics, UML visualization, and the ability to update and modify implementations and leverage design patterns, Borland officials said. Together Designer brings UML 2.0 support and targets analysts and architects with support for language-neutral modeling. It also features support for OCL (Object Constraint Language) and improved integration with Borlands other application lifecycle management products, including the CaliberRM requirements management tool, Brown said.
Microsoft officials in Redmond, Wash., said they see domain-specific tools such as Together for Visual Studio .Net as an important way for enterprises to improve their development cycle processes.
Prashant Sridharan, lead program manager of the Visual Studio 2005 Team System at Microsoft, said the company is glad to see other vendors aligning with Microsofts strategy.
“Were excited to see that Borland is expanding on our designer strategy by implementing a domain-specific language for UML 2.0,” Sridharan said. “We feel this validates our approach to focus on delivering a modeling platform so that customers and partners can build their own custom, tailored designers.”
Borland Together 2005 for Visual Studio .Net
- Supports UML 2.0
- Bridges the Microsoft .Net environment with UML development
- Supports MDAs (Model Driven Architectures)
- Supports use case diagrams, physical class models, audits, metrics and refactorings