Code generation and Associations. XMI2Code needed? or is libcodegenerator a mistake? (Was: Re: [Uml-devel] Association Combination bugfix patch)

[Brian Thomas]

	Hey Jonathan, Umbrello'ers,

On Wednesday 26 February 2003 04:11 pm, Jonathan Riddell wrote:
> > 	This patch _doesnt_ fix some of the presentation errors I noticed (and I
> > havent checked if these are in the bugtrax list or not). I'd rather not
> > fix them at this time as some others of you are hacking on this code. If
> > these things stay in the released 1.2 code, I might come back to clean
> > them up.
>
> Remind me again which presentation errors those are.

	Umph. I can only recall one at this moment: when you move class b, the
	association name doesnt coorectly follow the association line. I cant 
	verify anything right now since Im working from home today, and the code
	is "at work".

>
> There's some big inline methods in association.h which I'd like to move to
> association.cpp, Brian do you have any more work which might get out of
> sync if I did that?

	Oh, thats cool. Im working on the Java code writer right now and perhaps
	adding a documentation editing box to class attributes properties box.

	Speaking of the Javawriter and codegeneration in general, Im wondering if it is truely worth it to have a 
	separate xmi2code project running/competing with a "native" codegenerator library? Why
	duplicate efforts here? If xmi2code is kept, shouldnt we attempt to invoke it from umbrello so that
	the code produced is consistent? Or perhaps xmi2code can read in libcodegenerator so consistent
	code is produced? (Hmm. I need to check this out...perhaps xmi2code already works that way).

	That aside some things which I see are missing in the Umbrello codegeneration are the following:

	= lack of needed properties dialogs to allow editing of some properties (in particular, 'documentation',
	   perhaps there are others? I dont know yet..).

	= ability to have template for particular type of code generation (for example, a "JavaWriter"
	   template which directs how Java code is to be produced).

	= keeping hand edited code in output files

	= allowing configuration of writer-specific settings (such as the template to use) in umbrello.
	   (e.g. the codegenerator class should have some hook which allows it to invoke a language-specific
	   properties dialog box when asked).


								-b.t.

>
> Jonathan Riddell