The people at http://www.ivarjacobson.com have released an ebook on what they call the Use Case 2.0 The Definitive Guide.

You can pick a copy. And also look at a presentation that may put some more context around it.

They’ll ask you to fill in all kinds of fields…

It merges:

• Use Cases
• Stories
• Kanban
• Agile
• Backlog based work organization

It is a workable system IMHO.

There is a use case tracker described in there.

Save yourself some time by taking my little Excel version.

Sample Script to do it (using the Execute undocumented op)

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option explicit
 
!INC Local Scripts.EAConstants-VBScript
!INC EAScriptLib.VBScript-Logging
 
'
' Script Name: SQL
' Author: Philippe Back
' Purpose: Demo SQL Invocation
' Date: 25/1/2011
'

Function SQLQuery(sql)
Dim sRes
LOGInfo("Query: " & sql)
sRes = Repository.SQLQuery(sql)
LOGInfo("Res: " & sRes)
End Function
 
Function SQLExec(sql)
Dim sRes
LOGInfo("Statement: " & sql)
sRes = Repository.Execute(sql)
LOGInfo("Res: " & sRes)
End Function
 
Sub Main
SQLQuery("SELECT * FROM T_OBJECT WHERE OBJECT_ID=1")
SQLExec("UPDATE T_OBJECT SET NAME='STUFF' WHERE OBJECT_ID=1")
End Sub
 
Main

Breathing new Life into your Models

Enterprise Architect 9.2 is a major upgrade which significantly extends simulation, adds new modeling languages, new debugging capabilities and new tools to manage your models. Here are some of the great things built into this new release:

• Bring your state machines and business processes to life with advanced simulation support for triggers, signals and events. Model messages, button presses, switches and similar events, then watch as your scenarios come to life. Verify your solutions. Explore multiple pathways and outcomes. Build reusable event sets to automate simulations.*
• Business modelers can simulate their BPMN based models, including support for Parallel and Exclusive Gateways, Loops and basic activities. Animate and validate your business processes.**
• Software developers can now attach Enterprise Architect to the GNU debugger (GDB) and inspect, debug and visualize a wide range of supported platforms. Local and remote debugging are both supported. Ada, Java, C, C++ and Objective-C supported.***
• Modelers can now build and share concepts, taxonomies and detailed ontologies using the new MDG Technology for the Ontology Definition Metamodel with support for the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and the Resource Description Framework (RDF).
• Systems Engineers can take advantage of the enhanced support for SysML 1.2 including Block Elements drawn with parts, references, values, flow part and standard port compartments. SysML FlowSpecification elements with the flowProperties compartment.
• You can now generate visual diff/comparisons between current diagrams and baselines using the new visual comparison tools built into the model baseline facility. Highlight additions, deletions, moves, and resizes. Selectively roll back changes to a previous baseline state.

Enterprise Architect 9.2 supports UML® Version 2.4.1 – the latest specification from the Object Management Group® (OMG®).

Links and Downloads:

SD Times judges recognize the top innovators, leaders and influencers in the software development industry. They base their decisions on the offering, reputation and leadership of vendors in the industry. The best of the best!

Recognized for its contribution to the software development industry, Sparx Systems has won its third consecutive SD Times 100 Award!

The award underpins Sparx Systems’ ongoing commitment to model-driven development excellence.

www.sparxsystems.com/press/articles/2011sdtimes100.html

I’ve been busy recommending Enterprise Architect since version 3.6 and it never ceased to amaze me how the product reached new heights version after version.

As an official VAR, trainer, you name it for helping you reach new heights as well with confidence, check my services related to that matter.

I had the good fortune to interview Bernd Lohmeyer. Bernd is big on usability and specifiying winning solutions that customers love to use.

For the record, he was somewhat running the show when it comes to the StarOffice productivity suite. He was program manager.

Listen to the podcast episode:

Download Episode

As you know, I am using a lot of Open Source software.

Be it Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware, Mantis, ProjectPier, Ubuntu, Squeak, Tcl, Perl, LAMP, WordPress, OpenX, R, Octace, Maxima, Gimp, Scribus, Inkscape, OpenOffice…. there are lots of areas where Open Source provides tremendous leverage and ability to customize that is unmatched by commercial offerings once you’ve been through the learning curve and strategic decision. (Check my Oloh badge in the sidebar for more).

I’ve nothing against commercial software. On the contrary, some is really superb and beats the pants of FOSS (in this area, I do use Explorer2, Nusphere PHPEd, GotoMeeting, GotoMyPC, FinalCut Express on Mac, Diskeeper, Sparx Enterprise Architect to name a few). I may run above EUR 10K of proprietary software licences on my laptop – All dutifully paid for).

But FOSS quality varies. And now, there is QSOS.

QSOS is a method, designed to qualify, select and compare free and open source software in an objective, traceable and argued way. It publicly available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

Here is an overview:

The assessment goes on like this:

The funny bit is that Atos Origin is involved in this. Atos Origin being one of my customers makes this even more interesting. The world is a small place!

Too bad, Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware isn’t listed. Well, soon enough it will be!