Rational Rose

Rational Rose is an object-oriented Unified Modeling Language ( UML ) software design tool intended for visual modeling and component construction of enterprise-level software applications. In much the same way a theatrical director blocks out a play, a software designer uses Rational Rose to visually create (model) the framework for an application by blocking out classes with actors (stick figures), use case elements (ovals), objects (rectangles) and messages/relationships (arrows) in a sequence diagram using drag-and-drop symbols. Rational Rose documents the diagram as it is being constructed and then generates code in the designer's choice of C++, Visual Basic, Java, Oracle8, CORBA or Data Definition Language.

Two popular features of Rational Rose are its ability to provide iterative development and round-trip engineering. Rational Rose allows designers to take advantage of iterative development (sometimes called evolutionary development) because the new application can be created in stages with the output of one iteration becoming the input to the next. (This is in contrast to waterfall development where the whole project is completed from start to finish before a user gets to try it out.) Then, as the developer begins to understand how the components interact and makes modifications in the design, Rational Rose can perform what is called "round-trip engineering" by going back and updating the rest of the model to ensure the code remains consistent.

Rational Rose is extensible, with downloadable add-ins and third-party partner applications. It supports COM/DCOM (ActiveX), JavaBeans, and Corba component standards.