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From: Simon Wright <simon@pushface.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Ada and UML
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:14:42 +0100
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"Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)" <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr> writes:

> Le Tue, 31 Aug 2010 23:20:41 +0200, nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> a écrit:
>> Then the translation into code is just something mechanical.
>
> I do not really believe in automatic source generation from UML, as
> there may be multiple possibilities. Or else, may be these systems use
> something  to tell “for This, use That”. Just think that in Ada, you
> may have for  example at least, where polymorphism is required, two
> ways to do (when  feasible, sometime only one will applies) : static
> (via generics) and  dynamic (via tagged or interface)
> polymorphism. How can a system know it  should use this or that ? This
> requires a human analysis, to say “well,  this can be statically
> known, so let's use static polymorphism” or else  the opposite (just
> an example).

I am (was!) reasonably familiar with the ideas behind one approach to
this, the one originating with Shlaer-Mellor OOA.

You develop a model of your problem. This model is is precise enough
that it can be translated, given a set of rules, into executable code,
but it contains nothing about any specific platform (Ada, C, Java, ... /
embedded, distributed, ...). Note, for UML specifically, this means you
need precise semantics at the model level for this to be possible.

You develop (or buy, or re-use) a translation engine which translates
from that model to the platform you're using today.

> Your point makes me think about the so called “Executable
> UML”. Unfortunately, I do not know anything about it. I am just pretty
> sure this  cannot be automated.

Bridgepoint presently from Mentor Graphics,
http://www.mentor.com/products/sm/model_development/

iUML from Kennedy-Carter, http://www.kc.com/ (see 'Products')

In both cases the actions (the part that does things) are written in a
tool-specific programming language, and one of the jobs of the
translation engine is to turn this into compilable code.

Of particular interest to you, maybe, see
http://www.kc.com/PRODUCTS/iccg/adacode.php where you are offered two
Ada code generators, one for Ada 83 and one for SPARK (I don't know how
the SPARK generator gets 'interesting' pre/post/invariant conditions in
there; obviously the analyst is going to have to provide them).