[Uml-devel] What's next?

[Andrew Sutton]

On Thursday 23 January 2003 12:21 pm, BARTKO, Zoltan wrote:
> Speaking about promotion: I have posted an article on Umbrello to
> www.linux.sk, the slovak linux news portal. In two days it got 130+ reads
> and a comment, where one of the local linux heroes claims he likes the tool
> very much, for it uses far less resources than Together, so he shall
> switch... Let's wait+see...

that's almost bad - about the resources. i'm making an estimate here an now, 
that the design i'm proposing may well run over 1000 classes. for every 
interface in a metamodel, there's 2 corresponding classes. between MOF and 
UML that's around 300 total - and that doesn't cover specialized instances 
(like primitive types, packages and associations). with just MOF and UML, 
we're probably looking at something like 400 classes - all data, no 
visualization. then there's serialization and persistence, OCL, extensions, 
code generators, code imports, layout algorithms, other plugin features 
(patterns and design metrics maybe), the application itself... yup > 1000 
classes. isn't that bigger than the KDE core. its probably going to be one of 
the largest KDE projects around - assuming we can actually get it all done.

> So now: What's next? Could anybody please generate a release schedule (as
> the KDE/Koffice guys do it, many months ahead)? Or is this weird?

sure. as soon as we have a 2.0 branch with some code in it. we should do that 
soon. by the end of february, i'd like to see the following done or almost to 
completion:
	- done with all reflective interfaces
	- done with all primitive types
	- done with the plugin system (we can probably get away with KDE's)
	- done with the MOF 1.4 plugin (we CAN separate this)
	- done with a generic XMI serialization platform (to load MOF)
	- done with a generic framework for code generation
	- ironing out bugs in a metamodel code generator
	- begun implementation of UML 1.4 based on generated code
	- well into the design for the visual aspects of Umbrello
	- well into the design for the application itself

fortunately, the first several are well into implementation. i'm just ironing 
out design issues and implementation issues. i suspect that i may even be 
able to begin work on the XMI serialization platform as early as next week. 
maybe.

by the end of march, i'd like to see the visualization aspects begin to take 
shape. we should be able to build basic class diagrams and the like.

now, this is really optimistic. i think i may be able to work something close 
to full time (probably 30 hours a week) on this - unless things around here 
change drastically (like i have to get a job). but, i do plan on contributing 
a ton of code and design work as fast as i can. which is why i've been 
pushing 2.0 discussions.

> Since I have an "idée fixe", I definitely want to start work on a
> documentation generator in the 2nd half of february - until then I have
> noooo time.

unfortunately, you may want to wait a while on this. i don't see a 
documentation generator taking shape until both the data and visual 
interfaces for umbrello have frozen. once that's done, you should be able to 
implement a documentation generator much like you would a code generator - 
except that you'd be taking diagrams as well as data.

> Then: it would be nice to see some of the code/diagrams/ideas/whatever for
> 2.0 at some place on the net, for poor souls like I am, just to have an
> idea, which way the ship is heading and how to help.

here's what i've got so far. its vastly incomplete and starting to not match 
the actual implementation so far. i got tired of drawing boxes. its poorly 
documented and doesn't really reflect my current understanding of some of the 
underlying principles of an omg modeling application. but! its not too far 
off. oh. and its woefully incomplete because it only really addresses small 
aspects of the design - primarily reflection, datatypes and a small subset of 
the XMI stuff.

andy
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