[Uml-devel] UML for documentation and other feature requests

[Manuel Lemos]

Hello Andrea,

On 27-Oct-01 09:22:07, you wrote:

>>  Andrea,
>>
>> I strongly disagree if you suggest that kind of things should be hard-coded
>> (as opposed to embedded scripting)
>> I love Python and that would be the best choice anyway, IMHO.
>> KOffice , a major KDE application suite, where UML Modeller would fit in,
>> opted for Python scripting as well.

>Uhm, I've checked and only Kivio uses embedded python to support scripting,
>the other applications uses DCOP scripting, but in a very limited form. 

DCOP is an excellent idea because it works over XML RPC, thus you can
interface with applications from your scripting language of choice as long as
you have a XML-RPC component to communicate.


>I agree that scripting is important, since uml modeller cannot address
>directly every possible user need, but exposing DCOP interfaces would 
>allow a better integration with KDE and allow for multiple scripting
>languages
>(python of course, but also perl, scheme and even bash scripts).

Yes, and PHP too!  DCOP is a perfect solution!  Is it hard to add support
to it in the UML program?


>For what concerns use cases I think that we should support them directly,
>and not thru scripting, only because requisite management is a foundamental
>need in the development cycle. I know that it's difficult to find an 
>agreement on which sections compose a single use case, but this may 
>be solved by using an external template, written in XML, and by generating
>documentation gathering dialogs at run time. This approach could be extended 
>to allow special documentation structure for every component of every UML 
>diagram, thus allowing for different documentation needs. At the same time, a
>proper documentation builder could be constructed to allow for documentation
>generation from the diagram (in XML, HTML of KWord format, and using a
>builder pattern, for every other format you may want to support).

For now I would just ask that the use case properties dialog let users add
whay I described in a previous message:  pre/post conditions, scenary
description, etc..

Generating documentation from that may take a million forms.  It depends on
what you want to show and how.  So, it is better to first expose commands
that let you browse through the model information structure.



>Would this proposal address your needs and concerns about hard
>coded behaviour? Any way, a full DCOP interface would allow everyone
>to create whatever extension they need, but I don't see a full DCOP 
>scripting interface near just around the corner. Even KOffice exposes
>just a few commands, not a full fledged object model.

As long as it exposes commands to extract the information you need that is
good enough.



Regards,
Manuel Lemos

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