From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,677566500df644a3 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Jeffrey D. Cherry" Subject: Re: Popular Design Diagram Methods For Ada Date: 2000/02/04 Message-ID: <389AFCFE.7CB008BD@utech.net> X-Deja-AN: 581564108 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <38986B2C.D4BDB7A4@quadruscorp.com> <3899C15B.3C81B9E9@utech.net> <3899CE45.FDF88C8F@quadruscorp.com> X-Accept-Language: en,pdf Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: azure.impulse.net 949681450 193 207.154.66.50 Organization: Logicon MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-02-04T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Comments interspersed ... "Marin D. Condic" wrote: > > I've used their AdaDL tool in the past and it did useful things for us > at the time. In this case, I don't think I'm looking so much for some > sort of static code analysis as I am looking for a diagraming tool. What > we need to do is more at a gross level rather than resolving detailed > design issues. It's not so much a case of trying to identify where some > variable is declared or what is the "with" chain for a specific module > as it is a case of identifying how all the CSCs hang together, how and > what they communicate to each other, etc. I'd like that as well, and if you find something, please let me know where I can get my hands on it. IMHO, the problem here is that I don't think there is any way to derive CSC structure from code unless the developer followed a structured design methodology, or the tool can divine the intentions of the developer's thoughts on CSC interaction. If the developer used an object-oriented approach, then Rose and Software Through Pictures (StP) can help tremendously since that is their underlying assumption when those tools reverse engineering a set of software. The Understand for Ada tool can help in the diagramming of call trees, with trees, used by trees, etc., so if a structured design were originally used on the software, you'll get a good part of the CSC structure and interaction captured. Since their text reports repeat the graphic tree in text form, you may be able to import it into a drawing tool. This would give you a start on a drawing with the basic structure defined. You could then add and move things around based on your experience with the code in order to recover the original CSC design. > A "reverse engineering" tool that produced some sort of diagrams showing > who calls what might be helpful. I don't think that is as critical to > our problem as other factors though. My experience with reverse > engineering from code has been pretty disappointing, ... Ditto. > so I'd rather have > a tool I can use to draw my own diagrams with after using the meatware > to look over the code. I also want to select a methodology and tool with > which we can also go forward with future designs. I agree, but I'm sure you realize that this is still a largely manual process. It would be great to be able to automate such an activity. > Helpful Hint For Toolmakers: A design tool that lets you draw things at > a gross level and then "push down" into details (or "pop up" from > details to a higher context) would be *very* useful. Also, the ability > to flag features such that they can be "filtered out" of the view of a > diagram would be useful. Think about how a package may have one major > type and a handful of important subprograms. Yet there may be a > half-dozen other visible types which are necessary, but unimportant to > understanding what the package is all about. Being able to specify > levels of importance and filtering out the details (a sort of "zoom" > function) would be a very handy thing to have. I couldn't have said it better myself. > As I said elsewhere, I need something that supports the full Ada > language so that we can represent any Ada structures that occur. I'm not > against something that supports OOD, but it has to allow us to step > outside of that box when the code doesn't fit that model. Yes this should be a capability of a great tool, to use either a structured design or a object-oriented design. Likewise I'd like to be able to tell an idealistic reverse engineering tool that the software was developed using a structured approach, or an OO approach, and then have it generate the appropriate diagrams. Once the diagrams were generated, I would like to be able to extend the design (by manipulating the diagrams) and then have the tool forward engineer the appropriate changes. Now that's what I call round trip engineering. ;) > I've heard many mentions of UML diagrams. I must admit my ignorance in > this area. For the last 10 or so years, I've been designing with a > custom tool aimed specifically at Control Laws problems - Its a > specialty that is not as well served by "general purpose" software > design methodologies. As a result, I've not kept up with most of the > recent developments in design methodologies. Could you point me at any > web resources that describe UML and anything related to it? Start at Rational's web site at http://www.rational.com, then follow the link for the "UML Resource Center". If you're looking for a pseudo-intro book to UML, I liked the book "UML Toolkit" by Hans-Erik Eriksson and Magnus Penker. If you get into the real-time UML stuff, then I highly recommend the book "Doing Hard Time, Developing Real-Time Systems with UML, Objects, Frameworks, and Patterns" by Bruce Powel Douglass. It's a _great_ book! > We should all be so lucky as to have enough money to spend on custom > tool development! :-) I think I'd disagree about the "real operating > system" part - at least if we're talking Windows-NT and its descendents. > We need Windows as one platform for a design tool, but we'd also like to > be able to run on Sun boxes. The reality of the world is that lots of > platforms exist and a tool needs to be available on many of them if it > wants to succeed. If it only runs on Sun/Unix, I can't make use of it in > all the places it would need to run. I use Windows NT on my PC at home. I can also boot Windows 98 since I use IBM's boot manager from the Partition Magic product. But the last time I booted Windows 98 was the day I finished the Tomb Raider III game, about 7 months ago. I definitely think NT is more reliable and useful than either Windows 95 or 98, but there are much more reliable operating systems than NT, UNIX variants being the most prominent. -- Regards, Jeffrey D. Cherry Senior IV&V Analyst Logicon Space and Information Operations Logicon Inc. a Northrop Grumman company