SEKE 2012 Proceedings - Knowledge Systems Institute

Table 1. Candidate reverse engineering tools
Tool Reason for elimination
Amateras [2] Extracts class diagrams
ArgoUML [3] Standalone
ATL [4] Not specialized to UML
BoUML [6] Not free
Diver [8] Extracts sequence diagrams
UML2 Incompatible with Eclipse Indigo
Tools [31]
Fujaba [11] Different interpretation
Green Promising, but crashed
UML [15]
Open Model Standalone
Sphere [20]
Papyrus [21] Extracts class diagrams
StarUML [26] Standalone
Umbrello Not windows-based
UML Modeller
[30]
Violet [32] Exemplar, no reverse engineering
Preliminarily, we discovered many reverse engineering
tools; some of these were created for educational
purposes, while others were intended for a different audience.
An examination of this set led to a short list
of candidate reverse engineering tools, summarized in
Table 1. Our further investigation eliminated most of
these tools because they failed to meet one or more of
the selection criteria, and these reasons are also summarized
in the table. Violet represents a large class
of tools that does not offer reverse engineering capabilities.
BoUML had been free, but was no longer so
when we actually experimented with it. ArgoUML and
OpenSphere were standalone and not Eclipse plug-ins.
StarUML used a different interpretation of reverse engineering
from ours; it simply involved generating a
message on to a sequence diagram by clicking on a
method call. Fujaba’s documentation was out of date,
and it had limited capabilities when integrated into
Eclipse. ATL was not specialized for UML diagrams,
rather it was a model transformation tool. UML2Tools
was too old, and not compatible with Eclipse Indigo.
Umbrello was eliminated because it was not Microsoft
Windows-based. Finally, GreenUML appeared promising,
however, it crashed with one of the course projects.
Our exploration did not lead to a single Eclipse plugin
that could extract both static class and dynamic
sequence diagrams. Amateras was selected to extract
class diagrams. Papyrus was an option to substitute
for Amateras. The only free, Eclipse plug-in that actually
extracted dynamic sequence diagrams was Diver.
Diver’s documentation was decent and it had been runner
up for an Eclipse community award, so it seemed
more than adequate. It also worked in conjunction
with all the course projects. All these tools integrated
with Eclipse, and offered an added advantage of being
intended for industrial use.
4. Experiences and Reactions
This section reports experiences and difficulties in
using the chosen tools. It also summarizes the students’
reactions as they experimented with these tools.
4.1 Experiences and Difficulties
In this section, we describe the challenges involved
in set up, installation, and use of the tools. We also discuss
the approaches taken to resolve these challenges.
Integrated Development Environment We
chose Eclipse as the IDE because of student familiarity,
but the thought of mandating it had not occurred.
Several student teams chose to use NetBeans instead
of Eclipse. Thus, they used Eclipse to complete their
assignments as the reverse engineering tools were
reached through Eclipse, and ended up in using two
different development environments.
Configuration Management Tools The presemester
setup of Git and EGit with Eclipse was complicated
by the multiple components of the tool set.
Data was conveyed easily across each individual interface,
but representations of data to be entered on one
end of the tool chain and consumed at an end farther
away than the next immediate tool were not always
easy to deduce. Installation of this tool chain had to
be worked out through a combination of Internet search
and extensive trial and error.
Git and EGit provided the students with a seamless
integration with Eclipse. Prepared keystroke/click by
keystroke/click instructions showed them how to use
it. Once again, the use of Git and Egit was not incentivized,
i.e., no contribution to the final grade encouraged
them to use these tools. Thus, the students chose
whatever they found to be the easiest way to collaborate,
which included emailing each other the project
code, and storing it informally.
Reverse Engineering Tools The first reverse engineering
assignment was to extract static class diagrams
using either Amateras or Papyrus. Using these tools
was a simple matter of opening the project from the
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