Re: UML to Ada mapping

[Lionel Draghi <LioDraghi@filnet.fr>]

Roland Petrasch wrote:
> 
> 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).

Thanks for your contribution, Roland.

Unfortunatly, there is almost no reaction on my quetion on
comp.lang.ada. I was hohewer shure it was the best place to discuss this
point.

On the contrary, i get a lot of answers on the French UML list (that's
why i also forward your message to this list).
Concerning your summary on diagrams use for Ada code generation, i get
close answers.
I will send a summary a the end of this thread.

Relating to your opinion on the UML and UML tools maturity, tools
providers obviously don't agree with you. Today, Nasser Ketani
(Rational) was proud to precise that Rose allows Round Trip Engineering
even with Ada, although it is not as obvious as in Java or C++. 

I'm interrested in your point about the limitations in the manual code
completion.

Thanks again.

> 
> Best regards
> Roland Petrasch
> 
....
>

________________________________________________________________________
Lionel Draghi              

PS : Afin que je progresse sans trop d'efforts, Merci de bien vouloir me
     signaler mes fautes en Anglais et en Italien.

http://ada.eu.org/gtkada/                              http://attac.org/