Re: UML & Ada

["Marc A. Criley" <mcqada@earthlink.net>]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> In article <c5b88987.0111220631.39445b76@posting.google.com>, Mark says...
> >The key point is that a single "view" of a system can not fully
> >describe it. You need at least a logical view (modularity) and an
> >execution/process/task view.
> 
> That sound a bit like the old data flow vs. control flow dichotomy.

Though few are familiar with it, there is a unified control/data flow
notation that was developed in the late 80s that was amazingly
expressive and easy to use.  It was invented by William Bennett of Link
Flight Simulation and christened "Bennett notation".  Anyone could be
taught it in five minutes, and we found that it scaled extremely well,
and aided the generation of clear depictions of process and control
flow.  (We used Bennett in conjunction with Coad/Yourdon--CY to create
the object partitioning, and Bennett to capture the service
functionality.  Would've worked just as well with OMT's class diagrams.)

Even years after many of us left Link and the requirement to use it as
part of our jobs, we'll still employ it from time to time to help within
our current projects.

The book documenting Bennett notation is "Visualizing Software", by
William S. Bennett, and published by Marcel Decker, ISBN 0-8247-8714-5.

Marc A. Criley
Senior Staff Engineer
Quadrus Corporation
www.quadruscorp.com