They wanted visual modeling to be integrated-not with their IDE, but rather inside their IDE. A key problem was identified - developers didn't like to leave their IDE.
While Rational Rose was an important step in bringing Model-driven development (MDD) closer to practicing software developers, it was found that only a small fraction of developers used modeling on a routine basis. Rational Software's first visual modeling and development tool was Rational Rose, a stand-alone modeling tool that integrates at the application programming interface (API) level with third-party Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) to support a variety of programming languages and other implementation technologies. They combined competing modeling approaches to form what eventually became the Unified Modeling Language. Rational Software has a long history in application modeling, beginning in the early 1990s with the work of Grady Booch, James Rumbaugh and Ivar Jacobson. Since RSA is Eclipse-based, it can take advantage of the market of third-party plugins for Eclipse, as well as plugins specifically for Rational tools.
Installing Rational Software Architect gives the developer the option to either install RSA on top of an existing Eclipse v3.2 installation, or to install a new Eclipse v3.2 instance. It also has integrations with other Rational tools, such as ClearCase version control and ClearQuest configuration management.Īll Rational software products, including Rational Software Architect (RSA), are engineered as plugins that sit on top of the open-source Eclipse development platform.