JDecisiontable Code
Stop to rack your brain, start using process-oriented decision tables!
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What can you do with this application?
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How to get some logic (logic in the meaning of IF ... THEN ...) from one persons brain in
another persons brain? We need a way to tell it. You can name this way a protocol or even
a language. What kind of protocols do we have:
1. Telling in English fails because English does not have "END IF").
2. Drawing diagrams (e.g. UML) is an option but diagrams with nested conditions quickly
grow out of what a scree can display.
3. Pseudo code is more dense but still hard to read when it comes to complex logic.
4. Traditional decision tables (that one where you make a "x" when a condition is true)
provide a way to tell logic in a very dense form. But they lack a way or method how
to develop the logic while writing and worser, there is no way to proof them
mathematically. No wonder that they are unpopular.
This tool is about a method called "process-oriented decision tables".
It fixes all flaws of traditional decision tables making it a joy to work with.
But they keep all benefits of traditional decision tables. First of all they present the
logic in a very dense form.
1. Explore all possible combinations of conditions and actions by question-and-answer.
2. Have a compact one-sheet-view on complex logic.
3. Have abandoned combinations documented.
4. Make sure that your decision table is (formally) neither incomplete nor inconsistent
with one click. And the mathematics behind it is very easy and well documented ;-)
5. Get the test cases necessary to test your piece of logic with one click.
6. Other than in traditional decision tables, you can mix conditions and actions.
=> Stop to rack your brain - start using process-oriented decision tables! <=
Scrum: Get clear, doable and testable requirements to pin at your product backlog.
ISTQB: The way of creating decision tables as told in the ISTQB course I had in
August 2014 was a complete pain for me. Please have a look at
process-oriented decision tables before you try to use the other method.
Why is it important to present logic in compact/dense form?
-----------------------------------------------------------
It reduces the probability of errors. If you can display a document on your screen at
once an error is less probably than if you would need scroll between the pages.
This makes density so important.
Help/Examples
==============
There is a lot of documentation and examples!
Please go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/jdecisiontable/files/ to enjoy!
You may visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/jdecisiontable/ for updates.
There is a blog too.
Source code repository:
The Help files for this project are located in the folder Help.
Examples are located in the folder Examples.
Download area:
The Help files for this project are located in the package JDecisiontable*_Help.
Examples are located in the package JDecisiontable*_Examples.
Known problems
===============
The project has a ticket system. Please go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/jdecisiontable/.
Licence
========
This work is licensed under the MIT licence. For details see LICENSE.txt.
Licences of software from third parties are kept in the file THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.txt.
Notes
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User Interface
-----------------------------------
1. If you're just start typing in column "Description" there is no cursor.
Work around by pressing F2 key when you marked the cell you wish to edit.
Same in field successor (last field of ech rule).
2. You may mark any range of cells of a decision table and the press Ctrl + c.
This will copy the content of the marked cell to the clipboard.
If you want to copy the whole decision table to the clipboard you need either to use
the menu or to click on the label on top of the tab first and then press Ctrl + c.
3. If the fonts look ugly try to launch the program with
java -Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=lcd -jar JDecisiontable-x.y.z.jar
This problem was observed with Java 11 (OpenJdk 11) on Linux (Debian 10 with LxQt desktop).
It affected all Java programs which were tried out.
Linefeed in CSV files
-----------------------------------
1. The linefeed in the CSV files is LF (decimal 10, hexadecimal 0x0a)
on Linux®, *BSD, Mac OS and other Unix-based operation systems.
For Microsoft® Windows® it is CR LF (decimal 13 10, hexadecimal 0x0d 0x0a).
This is the usual behaviour and not a bug.
Usage
======
"x.y.z" means the version number of the software i.e. "2.2.0".
What you need
...............
For this way you need to install a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 7 or better on your system.
You may use the OpenJdk 7 if available.
How to run it
..............
- unpack the archive containing JDecisiontable for Java
- With Microsoft® Windows® double click on JDecisiontable-x.y.z.jar to run it.
- With Linux® it is the most easy way to make the file launch_jdecisiontable.sh executable and then double click on it.
You do not need to make Decisiontable-x.y.z.jar executable.
If you like, you may create a new launcher which executes "java -jar JDecisiontable-x.y.z.jar".
For contributors
=================
Long years ago I decided to use tabs (0x09) rather than spaces (0x20) for indentation. Please keep on it to avoid a mess of different indentation.
As there is a need from the crowd I will accept a patch which changes to spaces.
== End
