Re: UML module hackery

[Matthew Palmer <mjp16 ieee uow edu au>]

On 11 Nov 2002, Lars Clausen wrote:

> Sounds great!  It's good to have more hands working on it.Make sure that
> you work off of the CVS tree, as many things have changes.

Check.

> Tie points (connection points), as the other poster mentioned, can be good
> and bad.  Their big limitation is in the limited amount of them, their big
> strengths are that they keep a neater diagram and are easier to handle
> internally. 

I also like having lines which go straight rather than 'across-then-up'. 
Auto-breaking (where you click-and-drag to get a corner) is the way I'd like
to go with it.

> > * Make labels (of all sorts) more mobile, and clean up the default
> > placement of multiplicity tags.
> 
> If you're using 0.90, you'll find that the CVS version has better
> multiplicity tag placement.  A number of objects already have mobile

I did notice something about that, and intelligent placement is good, but it
can never handle all possible cases.  I'd like intelligent defaults plus
shiftability.

> labels, and that should really be the case for all labels.  It's not hard,
> but a lot of busywork.  Hey, you said you had interns... :)

I have interns, and 10 weeks to use 'em.  Busywork is what they do.

> > * Storing actual code along with class methods.  It's always felt to me
> > that UML would make a really nice "graphical programming" tool, if we
> > could store program code along with the structural elements.  It also
> > means that we can skip out of letting out UML model fall to pieces as
> > soon as we start to code, because we'll still be working with it.
> 
> We were discussing earlier a way to let users arbitrarily add fields to
> objects.  Now the UML class object in particular is nasty, evil and hairy,
> and (I think) the only object that doesn't use the nice properties system
> for everything.  It also needs linebreaks for long signatures and a number
> of other fixes that we've put off becuase it's so evil.  If you have an
> intern whose sanity isn't a concern of yours, having it redone would be
> great! :)

Their sanity is not my concern.  I give them work for 10 weeks, then hand
them back to the University.  Besides, I think the Uni has lobotomised them
sufficiently that mental disease is no longer possible.  <grin>

- Matt