Re: Database & Process Modeling tool

cam@codetel.net.do ("Ing. Melvin Perez Cedano") wrote: :Hello all! : :I'm evaluating Database & Process Modeling tool, primarly PowerDesigner :and ERWin. : :Have you test these products? : :Do you know when I could get competitive evaluation? The best evaluations I know of are available at http://www.aisintl.com They are however not god enough that you can go on their sugestions only. You still have to test the products yourself. Through my so far somewhat informal testing of several of these products I haven't found any that is realy good. All I have seen have such glaring user interface design defects to render them much too hard to use to my liking. The main issue I have is the tremendous amount of modal dialog boxes often combined with an all to limited amount of information available in each of them. It makes you click the mouse more than doing any real work. Mostly it's very obvious how these people could make it much better, but they seem to be engeneers preoccupied by the internal workings of their products more than making it fast and efficient for me. Another thing is I dislike the very idea behind ER design. Some seem to believe that is design at a higher level than the tables themselves. This is true in a sense, but the difference in level is so small it doesn't make up for the problems. The NIAM or ORM modeling of InfoModeller seems far to detailed for the major part of a database design. It may be usefull for some hard parts. Are any of the products able to create primary keys properly? That is by creating a unique index first and then use alter table to create the primary key? I don't know, I haven't found any who do yet. Very important to avoide having to do a lot of manual modifications of the DDL to create the database. Another all important aspect is their ability on version control and database upgrades from one version to the next. There is some support, but non do it all the way. My current feeling about these tools are that most of them are more like fancy drawing tools with some other usefull functions. I am somewhat reluctant to spend the dollars on them yet. Some do have great promise however. Such tools are probably indespensible for larger projects. Nils.Myklebust@idg.no NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway My opinions are those of my company The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org