[Zope-dev] ZPatterns, ObjectDomain, UML and all that.....

[Itai Tavor]

Steve Spicklemire wrote:

>I've been working out some issues with EMarket, and as a way to 'clear
>the cruft'.. I decided to bite the bullet and do some more careful
>object modeling. Other than scribbling on paper, and making up some
>diagrams that look a little like those from Coad's book on Patterns
>and Strategies, I've never used any object modeling tools before in my
>life. Soooo... I downloaded the eval version of ObjectDomain, and I
>can go for about 5 minutes on a Mac before it crashes, and usually 10
>or 15 on Windows before it stops responding to mouse/keyboard
>input. Save early, save often.. ;->. Sure it's frustrating.... but it
>seems more workable that ArgoUML which I've had even less luck
>with.... (What are other folks using? Rose?) anyway after much more
>time that I would have thought possible I've come up with:

I'm in about the same position as you right now - trying to learn 
formal object modeling and ZPatterns, so I'm not qualified to say 
anything about your model or questions... I just want to mention two 
things that I found:

- I didn't find any of the modeling tools you mentioned, or others 
I've tried, very useful on a Mac (or at all), and I ended up using 
ConceptDraw, which is a general purpose drawing tool with UML and 
Coad libraries.

- Steve Alexander wrote in a reply to your post:

>I think Coad's notation is better and clearer, as it allows you to
>communicate information about objects and their classes all in one
>place. Coad's notation is more about showing interactions of objects,
>whereas UML makes that awkward, and is mostly used for expressing static
>information about relationships between classes.

Very true, IMVHO. I still find there's a big gap between a Coad model 
and a ZPatterns implementation, but it's much better than with UML.

HTH
-- 
Itai Tavor                    "Je sautille, donc je suis."
C3Works    itai@c3works.com              - Kermit the Frog

"If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything"