15.3 Object modeling tools

Object modeling tools

Object modeling requires specialized modeling tools, and there are many different ones available. The obvious choice for Visual Studio developers is Microsoft Visual Modeler. However, Visual Modeler isn't a very advanced modeling tool because it was developed and packaged for Visual Basic developers. Due to the lack of certain object features in Visual Basic, Visual Modeler lacks a number of features as well. Among them are sequence diagrams, which are essential for proper object modeling.

Fortunately, Visual Modeler has a big brother called Rational Rose. In fact, Visual Modeler is only a small version of Rational Rose that has been licensed to Microsoft. The similarities go so far that even the COM objects have the same names. Unfortunately, the similarities stop at the product price. Rational Rose is rather pricey. Nevertheless, you'll need a sophisticated modeling tool if you want to do serious modeling.