Saturday, July 26, 2008
UML Frustrations
Today I had to work with UML models again - after a long time of working with domain specific meta models. I had to write a code generator to generate C++ code from a UML model (that was very C++-specific).And although I was using a decent UML tool (MagicDraw 15), it didn't work. I couldn't even read the exported XMI into Eclipse/oAW, since the exported XMI contained <, > and & characters in model element names (C++ generic types, reference attributes, etc.). The Eclipse UML2 XMI Parser (actually, it was the underlying Xerces) failed.
Now, I am not yet sure who to blame (MagicDraw, Eclipse UML2, the Rose importer from which the MagicDraw model was built), but one thing is clear: as soon as you touch UML/XMI, you run into those damned tool integration problems!
It is really frustrating: you get up early in the morning, motivated to work on the stuff, and you can't even read the model exported by a (decent, I thought) UML tool. permalink
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I agree that XMI is horrible but I wonder what your preferred model exchange format for DSL models is. I have to admit, though, that I haven't worked with EMF/Eclipse, yet - so probably there are already standardized formats in place.
There's no excuse for MagicDraw to export invalid XML -- so at least it's pretty clear who to blame.
Not that this helps you in any way, of course :-)
Not that this helps you in any way, of course :-)
I had to use UML for one of the projects I did.
I read entire UML2 Super structure specs .
Suppose you have to say "My car is Red in color in UML format".
UML will say "There is a Universe, You have millions of Planets in Universe, Among millions of planets u ve EARTH, Earth ..............."
It goes on and on. But ultimately it will not tell u "Your car is red in color".
This is how UML is. It will never let u tell things quite easily.
My friend have fun working around with UML. :)
I read entire UML2 Super structure specs .
Suppose you have to say "My car is Red in color in UML format".
UML will say "There is a Universe, You have millions of Planets in Universe, Among millions of planets u ve EARTH, Earth ..............."
It goes on and on. But ultimately it will not tell u "Your car is red in color".
This is how UML is. It will never let u tell things quite easily.
My friend have fun working around with UML. :)
Agree xmi is a mess, and magicdraw shouldn't be exporting invalid xml.
Sometimes though it's comforting to know we still have sed, awk and perl :-)
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Sometimes though it's comforting to know we still have sed, awk and perl :-)
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