An introduction to Code Rocket Eclipse

The purpose of this article is to provide introductory video overviews for Code Rocket Eclipse, to demonstrate the key features and benefits of Code Rocket based around the development of an imaginary software system : a Home Automation system.

Additional PDF guides are available here on the RQS Blog.

Additional articles here demonstrate the use of the Code Rocket plugin inside Visual Studio to design and implement a PayPal IPN handler, and also a binary search algorithm. Eclipse equivalents coming soon!

Contents

Scenario: A Smart Home System

We are developing a software system which automates household tasks such as turning lights on and off, making coffee, etc.

High Level Design

A UML design has been created to explore the system architecture. Classes such as 'Kitchen' and 'Switch' have been identified, containing methods such as MakeCoffee, switch on/off respectively see extract below:

Detailed design and implementation using Code Rocket

We now wish to design, implement and document the code for the system. Click the Play/[>] button on the image below to view the walkthrough video of this step. NOTE: click here to view the same video in a larger size in a separate page. Controls for pausing, resuming, fast-forwarding and rewinding can be found at the bottom of the video panel.

Key CodeRocket Benefits Demonstrated:

  • Automated up-front design, documentation and visualization support during coding
  • Seamlessly integrated within Eclipse, designed to fit in with the way you like to work
  • Quickly get up to speed with what you were working on after some time away from coding.
  • Help new team members get quickly up to speed too.
  • Review previous work at a higher level of abstraction from code and identify potential defects.
  • Documentation that doesn't get out of date, even if you make changes to the code.
  • Accessibility of code to non-technical stakeholders and/or within multi-disciplinary teams
  • Communication between stakeholders, project management
  • Minimum interference for developers within IDE, so they can do what they do best but with value added

Documentation Generation with Code Rocket

Click Play/[>] below, or here, to see some of Code Rocket's documentation generation capabilities.

Summary

This walk-through has demonstrated the use of Code Rocket and the important benefits it can provide during the software development process such as detailed design support, documentation support, customer involvement and project management - all seamlessly integrated within the Eclipse IDE and without detracting from the ultimate goal of software development which is to write high quality code cost effectively.