re: ada95 and uml

[rdriehle@nps.navy.mil ("Riehle, Richard")]

Joe Simon wrote:

Howdie. we are currently working on defining standards for doing OO
development using UML with Ada 95 as the target implementation language. We
are looking at the broad scope and we will then concentrate on real-time
embedded and safettyy critical projects (i.e. are there any UML type
constructs that we want to avoid for RT - Safety Critical). I am attempting
to acertain what the implications are in using UML with Ada95 (The UML
development tool we are using as of now is Telelogic Tau, it generates each
object as a separate package with only one type, making it difficult to use
Ada the way we are used to). Any thoughts on this subject would be greatly
appreciated. 
There is an interesting concept in software engineering called linguistic
continiuity. The idea
is that, the language we use for creating a software product should be
consistent through the
entire life-cycle of the process.   For example, if one used a structured
design CASE tool to 
model software that would be coded in an object-oriented programming
language, we would
say this is linguistically discontinuous.   Ideally, one can benefit from
linguistic continuity through
the entire lifecyle of a software product.   Each time we introduce a new
linguistic model, we
disrupt the communication,  require a translation capability, and lose
something in the translation.

From my study of UML and my knowledge of Ada, I have concluded there is a
substantial linguistic
discontinuity.   Ada has a rich model of program development that cannot be
completely represented
with UML.   Translating from UML to Ada or Ada to UML is guaranteed to lose
something in the
translation.

What we need is a modeling language for Ada that fills the requirement of
linguistic
continuity.   This is not only a problem with Ada.   Eiffel also maps poorly
to UML.  The Eiffel 
community has risen to the challenge and created a modeling language that
maps well to Eiffel.    

Richard Riehle

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