Re: UML to Ada mapping

[Roland Petrasch <petrasch@fhtw-berlin.de>]

Dear Lionel Draghi,

as far as I know, there is no ADA-generating UML-Tool. It seems to be
impossible to fully generate code from an UML-specification (UML has some
serious deficits and inconsistencies - this was discussed on the conference
CONQUEST 98 in N�rnberg, Germany). UML-tools are able to generate
class-frames with some additional informations (e.g. associations to other
classes are considered, but it is still the responsibility of the software
engineer to make the design decisions, i.e. vector, tree, array, liked list
or other container to implement for instance an aggregation). From my point
of view you need a lot more formal information to generate code (C++, Java,
ADA or whatever), because UML has serveral defiencies. The following parts
of the UML are helpful for code generation:
- packages, classes and class-diagram: classes, methods/procs and member
variables can be created. The modules exists in packages with their
namespace.
- State transition diagrams: They can be used to implement FSMs in
conjunction with or inside a class.
- Active objects: These stereotyped classes represent processes or threads
(also useful for code generation)
- Deployment diagram: Not for code generation but for design decisions
Sequence and collaboration diagrams are on the object level and can be used
only indirect for the system behavior. Similiar are the activity diagrams:
The notation is so flexible that you can do almost everything (and maybe
better nothing) with it.
Round-trip-engineering is difficult: Once the UML-tools have generated the
code, you are allowed to put your additional code (algorithms and other
stuff) only on special areas (which is sometimes an unacceptable
restriction). UML needs more time to get rid of its problems. On my opinion,
UML first has to become a _real_ standard, so after 1 or 2 years we will see
the first experience with UML, UML-tools and Ada.

Your questions are interesting and I hope I could contribute to the
discussion (despite my English mistakes).

Best regards
Roland Petrasch

-----------------------------------------------------------
Roland Petrasch
Fachhochschule f�r Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin
Fachbereich 4, Studiengang Wirtschaftsinformatik
Verwaltungsgeb�ude Raum VG 825
Treskowallee 8
10318 Berlin

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