Technology > CASE tools

Computer Aided Software Engineering, often written as CASE, is the use of software to develop and maintain an application. CASE tools are programmes that help a developer in aspects of information analysis, technical design, and documentation. CASE tools are meant to reduce lead time and development costs.

In order to show how they work, we will briefly discuss one of the best-known that we work a lot with at NetRom: Enterprise Architect, 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 Enterprise Architect (or Visio, or Model Maker) 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. Enterprise Architect documents the diagram as it is being constructed and then generates code in the designer's choice of Java (EE/SE), C#, C++, VB/VB.NET, ASP.NET, PHP, Delphi, Ruby or Data Definition Language.

Two popular features of Enterprise Architect are its ability to provide iterative development and round-trip engineering. 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. The developer can make modifications in the design and Enterprise Architect can perform what is called "round-trip engineering" by going back and updating the rest of the model to ensure the code remains consistent.