[Modeling] Comments on interaction diagrams

[James Odell]

Yes, this is a chicken-and-the-egg type of problem.  Doing a metamodel
without a diagram is problematic; developing a diagram without a metamodel
make things impractical.  So, we have started with the diagram as a possible
way to express agent interactions.  Once we find that it provides a good way
of communicating interactions, we then need to define the metamodel.  If we
start too early with the metamodel and want to make changes to the diagram,
then we could be creating double work.  However, we can certainly start on
the basic foundations of Interaction diagrams now.  The UML 2.0 metamodel is
99.99% completed.  So, we can start by reusing some of that to see if it
holds up under the agent approach.  If not, we will have a *lot* of work to
do.  But, in any case, --IMO -- we should make sure the Interaction Diagram
now reflects what we want to express, before spending too much time on the
metamodel.  
Anybody else have similar or differing opinions? Perhaps Paola and Hong
could start by moving over the AUML 2.0 metamodel to see how well it works?

Cheers,

Jim


On 3/12/03 5:31 AM, Paola Turci scribed:

> I completely agree with Hong.
> When I was reading the document on Interaction Diagrams I had the same
> feeling.
> Before we proceed any further with the document, I think it is necessary to
> define a meta-model. May be, we can start defining a meta-model for the
> Interaction Diagrams only (if it is possible), without taking into
> consideration a comprehensive meta-model for AUML.
> 
> I am aware that it is not a trivial job, but it is necessary and I would
> like to contribute to it.