[Components4oaw-discussion] Current support for ghost elements

[David C. <dav...@gm...>]

Hi!

As you know, in my project we are working with ea_uml2exporter since
the last year, personally I've implemented support for the
transformation of sequence diagram with relatively good results.
Unfortunately the transformation process is very tricky (the EA
metamodel sucks!), and it requires the user to take a lot of care and
attention when modelling and building EAP files.

In our scenario, it is not necessary to transform an entire EAP file,
only a specific package and its descendants. For example, we have a
model with packages like 'Analysis', 'Design', 'Testing' and so on.
Ea_uml2exporter handles this situation perfectly, but unfortunately it
is usual for some elements to have relations with other elements
stored in other non-translated packages; eg., an element from the
'Design' package could appear in the 'Testing' package. This is
problematic for us because it usually leads to problems in the
transformation and inconsistencies in the resulting models.

One possible solution is to force the EA users to take care of the
entire model and transform the whole EAP file, but this isn't
practical because EA is so broken that would require a tremendous
amount of effort --too much effort considering that it is only needed
a small subset of the model.  Another possibility is to have
completely isolated models, so no element from a package appears in
another sibling package. Although acceptable, that solution is not
desired because our team wants to keep a traceability for some
elements in the model.

Some time ago I saw in the repository some commits with the message
'GhostElements supported' and a feature request called 'Add support
for ghost elements'[1], and I was very excited because that feature
would help us with the problem I've described before. I was curious
about that and I've reviewed the changes, but I'm not really sure on
how it actually works or if it only a stub for a further
implementation. What is the current support for ghost elements?, does
it really work? I wouldn't mind to lend a hand in that task if
necessary.

I'm pretty sure I've said that before so many times, but thank you for
your in developing ea_uml2exporter :-)

Cheers!

P.D.: I'm still insisting to my managers to contribute back the
changes I've realized in ea_uml2exporter, with a little luck I think I
would be allowed to done that soon.

[1] https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=3032152&group_id=203960&atid=987694

-- 
David Castellanos Serrano
LouiSE Research Group
http://www.i3a.uclm.es/
http://www.uclm.es