[Uml-devel] extending class import to other languages

[Andrew Sutton]

> [ Not subscribed, please maintain CC. ]
> I was mainly thinking about PHP, but also Java perhaps.
> The Rev. Eng. framework sounds like it would work.  Is any
> of this in the cvs tree yet?  I admit I've only looked at
> the code from the latest release so far, but I'll checkout
> the code from cvs soon.  How much "dirty work" will the RE
> base handle, and what will be left to implement for each
> new language?  It would be pretty slick if all that was
> needed was to write a little (f)lex code and a small
> wrapper classe (perhaps just extending a provided one).

hmm... i think there's a PHP generator, but i don't know about an import for 
the current version.

unfortunately, real work on 2.0 hasn't really started yet - unless you count 
what i'm doing, but that's not anywhere near CVS yet. the 2.0 branch might 
show up in a week or two.

i can't say for certain how much "dirty work" the core libraries will do. if i 
build the foundations right (and i hope i do :) all the object management 
requirements will be implemented by the foundation (reflective, MOF and UML 
libraries). in theory, all you'd have to do is write some flex code and then 
start creating UML objects. this is, of course, in theory.

the one thing that you won't be able to do is create diagrams - just the data 
model. if we go nuts, we might be able to implement some "auto-diagramming" 
features that would generate and auto-layout UML diagrams for various 
objects. imagine auto-generating a sequence diagram based on the code in a 
function.

have you read any of the UML standards? it might very well be required reading 
for anybody wanting to make serious contributions to 2.0. its only... 1000 
pages or so ;) it might also give you some ideas of what UML objects 
correspond to PHP language constructs and what UML language profiles are all 
about - although i think those are separate documents.

here's the official standards repository URL for UML and related standards:

http://www.omg.org/technology/documents/modeling_spec_catalog.htm

andy