Experiences with IDEs and Java Teaching: What Works and What Doesn't: Together ControlCenter Borland

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Experiences with IDEs and Java Teaching What
Works and What Doesn't Together ControlCenter
(Borland)

• Paul J. Wagner
• University of Wisconsin Eau Claire
• ITiCSE 2003

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Integrated Design/Development/Deployment
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Features (version 6.0.1)

• Basic
• Integrated UML 1.3 design and JDK 1.3.1
  development
• Changes to design generate code, changes to code
  affect design
• UML class, use case, sequence, collaboration,
  activity, state component, deployment
• Flexibility in window display explore, design,
  edit/develop, messages
• UI Builder
• Integrated debugging
• Advanced
• Tools e.g. Database System Connections,
  Refactoring
• Good support for J2EE, Web Services
• Version control
• Integrations
• Accelerators Together products that extend
  ControlCenter (few)
• Plug-Ins Together and 3rd party modules that
  provide added functionality off of the Together
  API (many e.g. Ant, Oracle 9i, J2EE)
• Other Editions Solo, JBuilder, WebSphere Studio

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Feature Tabs
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Pros and Cons

• Pros
• Tight integration of object-oriented design,
  development, debugging and deployment
• Subset of environment is accessible for beginners
  (one lab exercise mid-semester after familiar
  with another IDE)
• Smoother transition into full-scale software
  development
• Cons
• Resource hungry good with 2 GHz processor/1GB
  main memory, not good with significantly lesser
  machines
• Whole product is too much for beginners
• Cost

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Miscellaneous

• More information
• http//www.togethersoft.com
• http//www.borland.com/together
• http//bdn.borland.com/together
• Note
• In the past we used both Together and IBM Visual
  Age
• Visual Age for Java will not be supported past
  12/03
• New/Updated products gt WebSphere Studio/Eclipse
• If still interested in Visual Age, look at
• http//www7b.software.ibm.com/wsdd/zones/vajava