[Modeling] Document structure

[Marc-Philippe Huget]

Radovan Cervenka wrote:

> > Not at all, never say to some formal people that semantics is defined as a
> > natural language document, you will be killed at that moment, if you
> define
> > semantics, define it formally or do not define it, OK, UML missed this
> point
> > but not formal methods
>
> :-))) I see... I was talking about OMG documents. E.g. UML and all related
> specifications define semantics in natural language - see e.g. UML 1.4.
> Semantics - semantics defined in English and some constraints of abstract
> syntax in OCL. BTW how to define syntax (meaning) of modeling elements
> formally? AUML is intended to be a language taht is usually marked as
> semi-formal. Any opinion?

Even if I am not die hard about formal methods, I think it might be a pity if
we don't need some formal description of AUML. Some ideas I had are using
operational semantics or object Z but CCS and CSP are good either.

> I see... There are several free UML tools. E.g. Umbrello, Argo/UML, etc.
> support also XMI.

Yes, that's right but the main problem is the extension of such tools, for
instance in Poseidon, it is possible to do some extensions but only on
professional version which is not free, I used Dia but there is some
non-interests from the designers to move to UML 2 for instance. BTW if we don't
want to be "amateur", we need Rose and we know that.

Cheers,
Marc-Philippe

--
Marc-Philippe Huget

Agent Applications, Research and Technology Group
Department of Computer Science
University of Liverpool
Chadwick Building, Peach Street
L69 7ZF Liverpool
United Kingdom

email: mph@csc.liv.ac.uk
http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~mph