Re: ada95 and uml

[Robert Palasek <bobpalasek@home.com>]

bobpalasek wrote:
 
> > But I don't understand the idea that you are supposed to be able to
> > generate one from the other.  That seems wrong and misguided to me.
> >
> >  A model is an abstraction that carries some proper subset of
> > salient points of the thing being modeled.  For it to be useful, the
> > model has to leave other stuff out.  If it doesn't leave anything
> > out, it's just an alternate representation.
> 

Simon writes:
> True; model + translation rules -> code. This is possible provided
> your model is expressed with the precision required by the translation
> rules[1].

What Simon writes is true of any formal rewriting system.  
As stated, it maybe too general to be useful.  

Let us suppose, however, that in this context "model" is limited to 
UML, and "code" stands for Ada.

  In this hypothetical situation, it should be possible to 
go from the model to an executable, and not very many people 
at all need to be concerned with the intermediate representation.  
Assembly language or machine code is fine. No need to bother 
anyone with Ada.  Keep it simple.

  But my conceit misses the point of using modeling as 
an abstraction to help understand the problem and/or the
solution.  The model is deliberately more simple than the final
design and implementation.  That is the nature of modeling.
To require the model to carry all the details seems misguided,
sophomoric, to me.