Sorry for the lack of blogging. I've been focusing on other things for a while now. I've been on a serious diet/exercise plan for more than a year now, dropping my weight from more than 125kg (20 stone) to below 90kg (14 stone) now with only 5kg left to reach my target weight. Unfortunately, my concentration has been very poor in recent weeks while I got down from 95 to 90kgs. I'm running 5km most days now as part of the plan. One of my problems is how to fit in a nice big pizza (I'm addicted) once a week without blowing the plan! Another problem is my cash reserves are now running low so I will be returning to IT contracting in the next 3-6 months for refinancing. Any projects looking for Java/OOA tooling/code generation experience then let me know :). However, I have no intention of stopping OOA Tool development.
Anyway, what to focus on while dropping my last 5kg. I'm loath to focus on the next build at the moment while my concentration is not 100%. So instead I'm going to do a small case study using OOA Tool, documenting the study in a series of technical notes over the coming weeks. I thought about doing a telecoms or banking example but it might turn some people off so I'm going with a Chess program that everyone can probably relate to.
I'm also going to use the activity to get to grips with Eclipse as a development tool. I've been using JBuilder 2005 for many years now but even they have moved to an Eclipse based platform. So why should I pay for the new version of JBuilder when I can download a free version of Eclipse? So I've installed the JEE build Helios SR1 version of Eclipse on my XP desktop and Vista laptop. I'm also restricting my OOA Tool use to Build 014 which is the current release. One problem I found with Eclipse was that it mostly assumes an internet connection to download additional features/plugins. That's fine with my laptop but I keep my desktop isolated for safety and never connect it to the internet. So I'm going to have to restrict my use to what's in the shrink wrapped JEE build, at least until I really know my way around Eclipse allowing me to manually download and install additional features.
I'm not going to say much about the case study since I want to publish the first part by the end of the week but I will include Shlaer-Mellor and Executable UML diagrams with the target platform being Java based. I will release all of the code created which won't be automatically generated since OOA Tool Build 014 doesn't support code generation. The purpose of the study is to see OOA in action rather than code generation. However, I will try to keep coding as template oriented as possible.
Now for other stuff. I'm not seeing much happening in the world of Executable UML. The world of Shlaer-Mellor is mostly restricted to this blog so not much happening there either! Kennedy Carter have now become Abstract Solutions with Allan Kennedy leaving to do his own stuff. I wish Allan and the other guys (especially Chris and Ian) all the best and I hope Abstract Solutions continues to provide Executable UML solutions to customers. Of course that requires customers with the vision to see the long term benefits.
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