Poseidon is total rubbish

[Sridhar Raman]

Hi folks,
I am totally bummed out. I was giving the final touches to my class diagram today and Poseidon crashed. It overwrote my original work ( Why the hell would it do that? ) with junk. My original file size was around 15 K and now it is only 1 K. My old work is totally lost. You would think that a software company worth its salt would have a design that would back up the old file into a temp file before it attempts to save it. Hey, Micro$oft does it for the word files!
Obviously I am frustrated!!! Just wanted to share this input so that others can benefit from my experience.
One small consolation is that I emailed myself a copy of the Poseidon project file yesterday. I got a lot of things done today including important modifications to my design and I don't have it anymore....
Anyway! It's the weekend and I will cool it off over the next couple of days and see what goes. You have a good weekend! And I hope the guy (or the lady) who wrote this part of the software, gets a flat tire this weekend :-)
Sridhar-

[Billy Tsai]

I have never heard of Poseidon, I used Rational Rose and Smartdraw for tho diagramming.
anyway how did u prepare for part1?

[Juan Rolando Prieur-Reza]

Originally posted by Sridhar Raman001:
Hi folks,
I am totally bummed out. . . .
Sridhar-

I will chime in with my experience with Poseidon:
I eval'ed in about 4 months ago for a team project.
I had so many problem getting it working and
doing some basics that we decided to use TogetherSoft
instead (which is a great UML product, now under Borland).

[Billy Tsai]

what else are u guys using to do part2?

[Sridhar Raman]

I guess you guys had your share of bad experiences with this product. Yeah... those were the only two good things about the product. I don't know of any other freeware or trial version that will run for at least a month? I think togethersoft has only a two week trial version right?
Billy,
Sorry about the delayed response. I didn't get a chance to visit the forum after my last posting. See below the link where I mentioned about how I prepared for Part I of the exam. It was a year and half back when there were no certification guides and hardly any mock exams. Some of the points that I had made may not be relevant any more. Just make sure that you verify that everything is pertinent to the current exam structure/syllabus.
https://coderanch.com/t/150099/java-Architect-SCEA/certification/Passed-part
Also, if you run a simple search using the phrase "passed", you get a lot of information from the folks who have cleared the exam. You may want to look at that.

Cheers
Sridhar

[Billy Tsai]

are you still doing part2 right now? I have just passed part1 and would like to know what kind of materials and books will help in completing part2, btw I have downloaded part2 assignment already and what program r u currently using to do part2?

[Rufus BugleWeed]

Winner of JDJ best modeling tool.
Magic Draw runs longer than 2 weeks.

[Sridhar Raman]

Thanks, Rufus, I will check it out. Are there any hidden constraints/limitations to the trail version? Also, if I need to extend the use of this tool longer than the trial period, will it allow me reinstall it? I had trouble with Macromedia once. The installer somehow kept track of my previous installation (though I uninstalled the previous version) and wouldn't let me reinstall. I hope MagicDraw doesn't do something like that as it will be a pain to have all my files stuck in some proprietary format.
Billy,
>> are you still doing part2 right now?
Yes. It has slowed down considerably since Poseidon deleted my work.
>> what kind of materials and books will help in completing part2,
I refer to Sun's blueprints and UML user guide by the Grady Booch and co. I have prior experience in J2EE arch and UML modeling and I refer to books mainly to look up for notations and ideas for enhancing my models.

>> btw I have downloaded part2 assignment already and what program r u currently using to do part2?
None. I am looking for a decent tool to switch over to. Just stay away from Poseidon is all I can say
Sridhar-

[Rufus BugleWeed]

There are limitations. If I remember correctly, it's something like no more than 25 classes/project. That is a bit of a pain. An acedemic purchase might be nice.
Periodically your trail version will expire and they make you download their latest version. I've never had any trouble upgrading.
They don't allow saving as a gif. But they do save images as .png.
They claim to store your projects in an industry standard XML file.

[Rufus BugleWeed]

This tool has gotten good reviews and the price is really nice - $10.
I wish somebody just starting out would try it and give us some feedback.
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/