Re: Rose model and ada code generation

[Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>]

"Ananth the Boss" <anboss@gmail.com> writes:

> in rational rose , there is an option generation of ada code from
> rose model. can anyone eloborate on how to go about designing rose
> model for safety critical software development and how to generate
> code. can any one suggest visual tutorial links. thanks in advance

You could check out my ColdFrame at http://coldframe.sf.net/ as an
alternative to code generation using Rose/Ada. However ..

You have been describing your project as safety critical. I wonder
what you mean? In UK terms, what's the Safety Integrity Level? (what
hazards that your software is responsible for could kill or injure
people? how often are the hazards likely to happen?).

I don't see why the model should be any different for safety-related
development than for any other, the model should reflect the problem
domain and if you are going to generate code the model has to be
precise. But any code generator involves a complex tool chain, most
parts of which will not be in any sense validated (ColdFrame uses iTcl
and Saxon, for example; and its run time as provided uses tagged types
and dispatching freely). It would probably take a lot of effort to
persuade your Independent Safety Authority to sign off on a toolset as
complex as that without requiring you to validate the generated code
(not the model). But I am not an expert.

A colleague has developed a toolset for generating SPARK code from
models (the tool was Artisan), including the generation of annotations
from tags in the model. See eg
http://www.artisansw.com/press/2004/BAE_hawk.asp -- he presented a
paper at Ada Europe 2005, too, "Safety Critical Software with UML,
Artisan and SPARK".