[Uml-devel] what happened to u2?

[Andrew Sutton]

hehe... well, it got big.

but i just thought i'd weigh in for a second and let everybody know what i 
have been working on.

i've essentially stripped the MOF and UML object models from my work on u2 - 
okay, i stripped the design and rewrote the metamodels from scratch. it's 
also got a new name: "The Open Modeling Framework (OMF)".  it's essentially 
an implementation of the entire MOF 1.4 and UML 1.4 object models. If anybody 
complains that its not complete, you can just tell them their wrong.

i just thought i'd throw out an update because i've essentially finished the 
XML serialization hooks and can actually generate real XMI files. for example 
(this is actually generated from some test object creation):

<XMI xmlns:Model="omg.org/MOF/1.4" xmi.version="1.1" >
 <XMI.header>
  <XMI.metamodel xmi.name="Model" xmi.version="1.4" />
  <XMI.model xmi.name="SomeModel" xmi.version="1.0" />
 </XMI.header>
 <XMI.content>
  <Model:Package constraints="a2" isLeaf="false" visibility="public_vis" 
isRoot="false" xmi.id="a1" isAbstract="false" name="MyPackage" >
   <Model:Package.contents>
    <Model:Constraint constrainedElements="a1" xmi.id="a2" name="Constraint1" 
container="a1" />
   </Model:Package.contents>
  </Model:Package>
 </XMI.content>
</XMI>

what else does it do? well, its got some hooks for external usage like 
observers and the like - specifically so an editor, lets say umbrello, can 
watch for changes in data. i'm also planning on implementing a property 
service so developers can tack extra information onto the data objects if 
they need to.

of course, i've got tons and tons to do. for example, there's no way to delete 
objects yet. it needs a reference counting implementation somewhere. also, 
non of the uml stuff is plugged in. that should only be about an hour's fix. 
right... and i haven't tested any of it... at least nothing significant. but, 
the interfaces are stabilizing rapidly.

if anybody's interested, i'm going to post a src version to my web page in the 
next couple minutes here...

http://www.cs.kent.edu/~asutton

i've done my best to document the core classes and alot of other internal 
stuff. there's some dead code, but not much. i'm figuring on an alpha release 
in the next couple of weeks - a real alpha release (depending on my work 
load). if there's enough interest, i'll also move this to sourceforge and 
start giving people admin rights.

andy