Does anyone have experience with TogetherSoft in a "light" development process?

[David DeCesare]

The company I work for is looking to standardize on a Java IDE. I've used JBuilder, Net Beans, and vi (vi is my personal favorite); however, none of those tools works that well in a "light" development process environment.
A few days ago TogetherSoft demoed their tools and I was very impressed that they focused on an XP process. But that was their marketing demo and the 15 day evaluation is good but not encompassing. Has anyone used TogetherSoft tools in an XP or near-XP environment? Do their tools really aid an XP environment, or it is the same as any other IDE/modeling tool.
Thank you for any comments,
David DeCesare

[Tiger Scott]

I have been using Togethersoft also in XP. But I am not aware of any specific XP feature. I do not know what XP feature they have highlighted? TJ is a good modelling tool- better than Rose-especially for Java. But I do not recomend it as an editor- it is too slow and a huge memory hog- even 512M is barely enough.
HTH
Sanjay

[David DeCesare]

Originally posted by Sanjay Bahal:
...But I am not aware of any specific XP feature. I do not know what XP feature they have highlighted?...

They talked about using Test-First practice with XPTest (it automatically creates the test case classes). Also, with their tightly integrated modeling and coding scheme seems to fit the XP view of throwing away your designs since they go out of date almost immediately. The other piece I liked was their tool to "enforce" coding standards that used an XML description file. Using this tool, we could create that XML file and store it in our version control system. People could pull that down so everyone uses that same file.
I may have over emphasized the tool's XP promotion, but it does appear to be well suited for an XP environment. I just wanted to see how true that was in practice.

[Tiger Scott]

I am aware- but have not used the XPTest integrated in TJ. This feature could be useful- especially in XP. But I do not know how much integation is good- I prefer to keep things disjointed a bit- keeps things flexible.
Sanjay

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by David DeCesare:
[QB]
They talked about using Test-First practice with XPTest (it automatically creates the test case classes).

How does this work? How does this conform to test-first design?

Also, with their tightly integrated modeling and coding scheme seems to fit the XP view of throwing away your designs since they go out of date almost immediately.

I think Together encourages (or even forces) you to put way too much detail into your diagrams. The diagrams shouldn't *fully* reflect the code (the code itself can do this), but provide an overview of the key design decisions, imo.

The Together-diagrams I have seen were either so overloaded that you got lost in them or weren't coupled to code at all.

The other piece I liked was their tool to "enforce" coding standards that used an XML description file. Using this tool, we could create that XML file and store it in our version control system. People could pull that down so everyone uses that same file.

I don't think this is necessary in an XP team. The coding standard lives in the team, not in a file, so to speak.

I may have over emphasized the tool's XP promotion, but it does appear to be well suited for an XP environment. I just wanted to see how true that was in practice.

For me key aspects of a good XP IDE are

- a powerfull refactoring browser
- an incremental compiler
- tight integration of version control

Take a look at "eclipse" and "IntelliJ Idea" for my two favorites.
[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: Ilja Preuss ]

[Doug Wang]

Kent Beck and Martin Fowler recommend Eclipse and IntelliJ as XP IDE. Both have CVS + Ant + JUnit integrated in. Also you can do refactoring with eclipse.
[ February 19, 2002: Message edited by: Doug Wang ]

[Tom Stevns]

As mentioned in my own question i've used Together
ver 5 spring 2001 in a professional va-java/ejb project. At that time, and maybe still a greenhorn
on the modelling technique, we had a lot of good experiences with Together. The interfaces including reverse engeeering tools were extremely good.
But I will recommend to use this tool for modelling only, don't go use for traditional
development.
regards Tom Stevns Nielsen, SCJP

[Johannes de Jong]

Kent Beck and Martin Fowler recommend Eclipse and IntelliJ as XP IDE
Now surely recommending Eclispse is nothing more than a "hidden" recommendation for IBM's Webshere Studio ??

[David DeCesare]

Originally posted by Doug Wang:
Kent Beck and Martin Fowler recommend Eclipse and IntelliJ as XP IDE.

I've heard a lot of good things about IntelliJ (Eclipse is nice but a little too green). Our group is new to OO development so we wanted an integrated tool to handle the UML modeling, coding, and EJB functionality (how much we need EJB will be determined as we prototype systems). The other piece I liked about Together was their pattern repository. Again, we are new this this process so it may turn out to be worthless. Sorry to ramble...I don't want this thread to turn into a purely IDE discussion. I just wanted to see if people had success with Together in an XP environment. Thanks.

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Johannes de Jong:
Kent Beck and Martin Fowler recommend Eclipse and IntelliJ as XP IDE

Now surely recommending Eclispse is nothing more than a "hidden" recommendation for IBM's Webshere Studio ??

Well, I think it's an open recommendation for eclipse, nothing more, nothing less. From where do you get the impression that there is something hidden?

[shailesh sonavadekar]

ilja , i think jdj is not speaking about eclipse. he is asking about is there hidden suggestion for ibm websphere . I think , JDJ it is only for eclipse.
Everybody will test it & if it is really beneficial , then idustry will accept it , isn't it ? i think nobody takes anybody for granted now a days. so ,we have to see result by ourselves.

[Johannes de Jong]

Sorry I used the wrong word. One has to remember that Eclipse is the "foundation" IBM's Webshere Studio (as far as I'm aware). So by recommending Eclispe they also in a round-a-about-way recommend Wedshere Studio.
Ok enough like David DeCesare said this is turning into a IDE thread , which is way off topic condidering the forum we are in

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Johannes de Jong:
[QB]Sorry I used the wrong word. One has to remember that Eclipse is the "foundation" IBM's Webshere Studio (as far as I'm aware).

You are right. On the other hand, it won't be the only plug-in available for eclipse. On http://www.genuitec.com/products.htm there are also plug-ins for Weblogic and JBoss; Rational and Togethersoft are also working on eclipse-ports of their tools.

So by recommending Eclispe they also in a round-a-about-way recommend Wedshere Studio.

I would rather suspect that they would think of it as overkill for most projects. I could be wrong, of course...