[Yact-dev] Re: Gnage

[Marius S. <ma...@fi...>]

Hi Gerald,

[cc'ed to Yact mailing list]

>First the programming language is not totally fixed yet, for the moment
>the first tests use java, but I am not a fundamentalist (but i
>won't devellop under windows with Microsoft APIs)

OK.  Yact, as you know, uses C++ and the Qt toolkit.  It's being written 
for Linux, but other UNIX  flavors should work as well without too much of 
a hassle.  In fact, it may even compile on Windows as well.

>My main goal is to produce the code generator (for the moment
>input XMI output C, C++, Java), because a lot of projects are
>currently working on graphical interface and so on...

Yes, you're right.  Several UML tool projects have popped up lately, 
although almost all of them after Yact :-)

I've been in touch with the the GNUM author 
(http://sourceforge.net/project/?group_id=2566) and we talked about the 
repository format.  Nothing is decided, but we have plans on using UXF 
(http://www.yy.ics.keio.ac.jp/~suzuki/project/uxf/) as it is easier.  We've 
also discussed CDIF.  XMI has, of course, also been discussed, but we fear 
that it is too complicated.

Yact is, of course, designed so that it could eventually create all these 
formats.  It's just a question which of them we should make first.  But 
you'll have to write a parser for XMI if you're going to use it, and so, I 
guess a general enough parser would be useable for Yact to load stored 
files as well.  If so, Gnage would have to be a library or something.  But 
of course, that's up to you.

Also, the GNUM author said that GNUM neither is going to user interface 
centric.

I've not been in touch with the Dachshund authors as their project seems to 
very similar to Yact, that is, GUI centered.   Unfortunately, they are 
using a different toolkit.   However, they too need a repository and a 
parser of some kind...

>I have some experiences on code generators (I am currently working
>on code generators for Alcatel Space Industries), so
>I think I know the needs and how to achieve them.

This sounds very good!  In the Yact team, Daniel knows the backbone 
structure of the tool (he has designed some before), Mike does all the 
makefile stuff, and I guess I'll mostly do GUI stuff (which I know).

>Gnage as the code generator for Yact, and Yact as the XMI generator,
>it's a good idea.

Yes, indeed, this sound like a very good idea.  No wasted effort on both 
implementing GUIs for example.

>I do not know if I continue in Java, but it permit a great flexibility for 
>the configuration (for exemple user add dynamicaly classes)

I'm not sure what you mean here.

>I do not think that languages are so important, if we give users
>a homogenous environnement, no need to have only C, C++ or java,
>for example, my generetor is for the moment only called on command
>line, so it can be easily used from a other tool.

True.  I didn't know that your project would be command line, so I was 
thinking more on source code level, and not on application level.

Using command line tools from GUIs is OK, but it greatly restricts the 
possibilities of how to do the GUI.  Things like progress bars, or good 
error handling is harder, if not impossible (depending on the tool).


  - Marius