Graphical modeling notation...

Trygve Reenskaug trygver at ifi.uio.no
Sun Jun 19 07:55:52 UTC 2005


Mark,
Look at Collaborations in UML 2.0. Let your objects be the roles of the 
collaborations and the timelines of your sequence diagrams. Use the UML 
notation, but ignore the textbooks and think in terms of run time objects 
rather than classes.



Good luck
--Trygve

P.S.
OOram modeling was invented for describing object interaction. (You find 
parts of OOram in the UML Collaborations and Interactions). UML 1.x got it 
wrong, letting a role ("ClassifierRole") be a classifier. They get it right 
in UML 2.0, the role (part) being a Property ("...a declared state of one 
or more instances in terms of a named relationship"). The value of a role 
is an object, possibly with late binding.

BabyUML is a laboratory I am developing to explore high level, true OO 
programming. A conceptual model is coded with UML class diagrams. The 
collaboration is an external schema on this model. Its roles are defined by 
queries (methods) on the conceptual model, ensuring a focus on objects and 
late binding. Interactions are used to code object interaction.

Great fun, but progress is slow because I use a lot of time to make Morphic 
do what I want.


At 18:34 18.06.2005, Mark Mayfield wrote:
>Fellow Squeakers...
>
>I'm currently building an object model for a banking domain that has 5
>parallel projects utilizing it (you know the kind...100+ people, etc.). I
>have grown this model over the past year using true object-oriented design
>principles ("true OO" being defined by Alan Kay as messaging,
>encapsulation, and extreme late binding). Even though this is a huge I/T
>group (2000+) and they require models in UML, I've used Squeak as my
>modeling language. I have major parts of the model running in Squeak
>complete with Traits-like pluggable behaviors and SUnit tests.
>
>But now the challenge...they want diagrams. Futhermore, they want them in UML.
>
>For those that have ever dove deep into UML you know it does not support
>true messaging or late binding. A message in UML is a function invocation.
>This sequence diagrams have enough trouble handling superclass/subclass
>behaviors, and pluggable traits are almost impossible to show accurately.
>
>Does anyone know of a graphical modeling notation that supports a truly
>object-oriented model? Or is Smalltalk a new calculus, as Alan Kay
>suggests, and therefore it remains textual? When I explain to people that
>the true power lies between the objects, ie, the messaging, they want me to
>to draw them a picture.
>
>Thanks,
>Mark Mayfield


-- 

Trygve Reenskaug      mailto: trygver at ifi.uio.no
Morgedalsvn. 5A       http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~trygver
N-0378 Oslo           Tel: (+47) 22 49 57 27
Norway





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