Manual and Automatic Numbering

Shlaer-Mellor OOA uses numbers to help analysts identify various model elements. Some model elements use numbers as primary identifiers, e.g. relationships. While other model elements use numbers as secondary identifiers, e.g. objects, states, events, processes and synchronous services. Note that, OOA08 defines operations as a process and synchronous service supertype, generalizing process and synchronous service numbers as operation numbers.

If an object or relationship has been assigned to a subsystem then its number is restricted to the number range associated with that subsystem. These number ranges are typically assigned at intervals of 100, e.g. 1-99, 101-199, 201-299 etc. This helps analysts identify which subsystem an object or relationship is assigned to simply from looking at its number.

These numbering conventions were introduced in OOA91 at a time when there was minimal CASE tool support. They were designed to help analysts handle a mostly paper driven modelling process. OOA08 assumes a CASE tool is being used to capture and maintain models since OOA Tool has been implemented hand-in-hand with OOA08 as a cross platform reference implementation. The standard edition of this CASE tool is distributed freely to help promote the use of Shlaer-Mellor OOA/RD in a UML dominated industry.

OOA08 supports all of the numbering conventions used in OOA91. However, all of these numbers should by default be automatically allocated by your CASE tool. The CASE tool should also allow an analyst to override the automatic numbering so that previously defined models can still be captured and maintained. The CASE tool should also support and enforce subsystem number ranges.

OOA08 supports manual and automatic numbering by defining a naming attribute called Order of type Ordinal ID, a naming attribute called Manual Number and a mathematically dependent attribute called Number for each of the numbered model elements. The order attribute is automatically updated as a model element is reordered within the context of its parent model element. Ordinal ID attributes will be discussed along with Arbitrary ID attributes in a future post. The manual number attribute is maintained by the analyst (after manual numbering is enabled). The number attribute is derived from either the order attribute or the manual number attribute dependent on whether manual numbering is enabled. Deriving object and relationship numbers is more complicated since objects and relationships may be assigned to a subsystem. If that is the case then automatic numbers are derived from the subsystems lowest number offset by the assigned object or relationship order attribute which is distinct from the object or relationship order attribute. OOA Tool does not allow an analyst to define non-unique manual numbers.

The attributes in OOA08 which control each model element number are given below:

• object numbers are controlled by the Manual Object Numbering attribute defined on an object's parent information model,
• relationship numbers are controlled by the Manual Relationship Numbering attribute defined on a relationship's parent information model,
• state numbers are controlled by the Manual State Numbering attribute defined on a state's parent state model,
• event numbers are controlled by the Manual Event Numbering attribute defined on an event's parent event destination,
• and operation numbers are controlled by the Manual Operation Numbering attribute defined on an operation's parent event destination.

The fact that all operations have a parent event destination will be discussed in a future post.

OOA08 supports manual and automatic subsystem number ranges by defining the optional descriptive attributes Manual Lowest Number and Manual Highest Number along with the mathematically dependent attributes Lowest Number and Highest Number. The manual lowest and highest number attributes are maintained by the analyst. The lowest and highest number attributes are derived from the manual numbers dependent on whether the manual number range allows all objects and relationships to be allocated unique numbers within the specified number range. OOA Tool will automatically override the manual number range with a valid range if necessary to ensure all object and relationship numbers are unique.

Code Generation 2008 Conference

I attended the Code Generation 2008 conference this year to see what the state of the art was and to find out the status of Executable UML within the code generation community.

However, the focus of the conference was very much on Domain-Specific Languages (DSL). Before going to the conference I wouldn't have guessed that there would be so much interest in non-tool vendors creating their own programming languages to define their domain-specific configuration data. Various tool vendors demonstrated and talked about their DSL creation tools. Steven Kelly from MetaCase demonstrated their MetaEdit+® product. Steve Cook from Microsoft gave the keynote presentation on the final day. Their product is Microsoft DSL Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. Although it doesn't seem to be a mainstream product on their website, just some free components for an old version of their development tool. There were numerous talks on DSL plugins for the open source Eclipse tool including Eclipse Modelling Framework (EMF) and openArchitectureWare's Xtext. I was impressed with Xtext and its ability to define grammars and static semantics, allowing automatic code completion and constraint checking in a generic editor. I will have to evaluate whether any of its features should be incorporated into the Pattern Language used in OOA08.

Code generation from analysis models was really only discussed in Kennedy Carter's presentations and in several of the panel discussions. Chris Raistrick gave a tutorial on Executable UML. However, his talk was almost identical to the Shlaer-Mellor talks he gave more than 10 years ago at the Shlaer-Mellor User Group conferences that Kennedy Carter used to organise. I still enjoyed his talk since he's a great presenter. In fact, it was Chris who taught me Shlaer-Mellor OOA/RD in three 1 week courses over 15 years ago. The potential of the method has stayed with me since then. The only technology that I have come across with the same potential since then has been Java which I have also fully embraced. Allan Kennedy also gave a talk which was billed as an experience report but was actually an attempt to convince people of the merits of translation rather than elaboration. Unfortunately, an experience report would have more useful for the audience present.

What was sad after listening to Kennedy Carter's talks and speaking to them personally was the lack of vision they now have. They have embraced UML by promoting their version of Shlaer-Mellor OOA/RD as an Executable UML profile [xUML04]. This has allowed their company to do well in a UML dominated industry. Their technology works and I'm sure their customers are happy with the delivered systems. However, they have abandoned the vision they themselves promoted of an open marketplace for reusable service domains and software architectures. Reuse is what makes code generation from analysis models practical and affordable. Not reuse of assets within your own organisation. That benefit may come later. It is the immediate reuse of off-the-self assets that can make this approach viable for most companies. XMI does not allow Executable UML models to be interchanged between tools. I asked Chris whether Kennedy Carter would be prepared to make their tool interchange format publicly available and his answer was a definite no. They have made their action language [ASL03] openly available but this is not enough.

The most interesting panel discussion involving Executable UML was Goldfish Bowl: Modelling Standards: what exists, what's missing and what failed? This session was recorded and will hopefully be available on the code generation website in the future. Most of the discussion involved OMG standards, e.g. UML and XMI. Bran Selic who chaired the team responsible for the UML 2.0 standard, made it very clear that MDA is not a standard even through many people think it is. There was a consensus within the goldfish bowl that UML 2.0 is inconsistent and incomplete. Bran reinforced this conclusion by mentioned that an unnamed company recently spent 1 million dollars trying to build a compliance suite for UML. The effort was apparently a complete failure due to problems with the standard. The point was also made that these issues probably couldn't be fixed because there are too many vested interests and too much user momentum behind the current standard. The failure of XMI as a UML interchange format was also discussed. Bran suggested that customers haven't made this a priority with tool vendors and until they did interoperability probably wouldn't improve. Bran also indicated that UML should evolve into an executable UML. However, he seemed to disown the current Executable UML offerings from Kennedy Carter and Mentor Graphics. He even suggested that Executable UML was a failure during questions in the final keynote presentation by Steve Cook.

This year's conference was interesting and well worth attending. My thanks to Mark Dalgarno and his team for organising it. I would also like to thank all the speakers for their contributions. Barring any scheduling conflicts I will try to attend next year.