Concepts of Synchronize, Generate, Export, Merge,

[tomte]

Documentation on Differences and Concepts of Synchronize, Generate, Export, Merge, ... is missing.

Hello,

In EA User Guide I found just one sentence telling that "Generate" will result in merging.

Dealing with both EA and Eclipse I already have polluted a huge project by incorrect synchronizations.

I checked MDG (model driven generation) plug-in for Eclipse.
Lacks in explaining the concepts as well, seems to make things even worse, unclear.

Please define the words and their results:

- "Synchronize" (in EA, not in general)
- "Generate" (overwriting?, merging?, on which rules?, ...)
- "Export"
- "Import"
- "Merge" ("The Run button runs the merge", p.63)
- "Synchronize > Reverse" "brings code out of Eclipse and puts it into the model":
- - "brings"?
- - "puts"?

I do not need lenghty screen shots of the menues provided.

I need the concepts and decision criteria which one of the menus to use.

And a clear description of the effects and possible side effects.

Thank you in advance,
tomte

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Tomte,

you are asking for non-tautological help.

Paolo

[size=10]tautology: needless repetition of an idea, esp. in words other than those of the immediate context, without imparting additional force or clearness, as in “widow woman.”[/size]

[tomte]

non-tautological help

Hmmmm, What's that?
First, for the word tautology, is it a "widow woman" or is it a "female widow"?

Then, what could be a "tautological help"?   No Idea.

Then, what could be a "non-tautological help"?   No Idea.

No, I am not asking for any stupid help system at all but for some prosa telling me the semantics of all that mixed-up EA-vocabulary - and decision criteria which way to go without destroying my Eclipse&EA project(s) once more.
tomte

[tomte]

Now that peter.zrnko showed me the intra-forum Search link, I found another post - from two and a half years ago:
http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=suggestions;action=display;num=1082462482;start=0#0

The kind answer had been: "EA is under constant development, I really do suggest that you reguarly check for new releases of EA".

Maybe it is "only" a matter of documentation today? Nevertheless, Sisyphus must go on ...
tomte

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Hmmmm, What's that?
First, for the word tautology, is it a "widow woman" or is it a "female widow"?

No, the word woman is unnecessary.  In English, there are NO male widows!

Then, what could be a "tautological help"?   No Idea.

Help of the form:
Item    .    .   Description
Name       .    .   Name

where the description is essentially the name.  If the name is descriptive, why repeat it?  It's unnecessary.  Better to provide additional information in the description.

When I first started using EA I got so annoyed with that...

Then, what could be a "non-tautological help"?   No Idea.

Help that is meaningful and NOT trite...  Understanding by software developers that Help is just as important as code.  In fact, from the Agile manifesto:  "Prefer working code to documentation" - Since we have neither (because the EA user interface is often counter-intuitive or self contradictory as you indicate), we are in the worst of both worlds...

No, I am not asking for any stupid help system at all but for some prose telling me the semantics of all that mixed-up EA-vocabulary - and decision criteria which way to go without destroying my Eclipse&EA project(s) once more.
tomte

Join the club...  See our postings on data loss on XMI round tripping...

After a while, like the frog in the heating water, you tend not to notice the unhelp and stick to what you know works...  You still boil though...

HTH,
Paolo

[tomte]

For giving some idea to the sparxians:

Synchronization Usecases (insted of thinking in EA features):

Reverse:
=======
- Several new Eclipse-.java-interfaces need to be imported / synchronized into EA model - how to:
- - ####?

- Several new Eclipse-.java-interface-methods need to be imported / synchronized into EA model - how to:
- - ####?

- Several altered Eclipse-.java-interfaces need to be synchronized into EA model - how to:
- - ####?

- Several altered Eclipse-.java-interface-methods need to be synchronized into EA model - how to:
- - ####?

- Several deleted Eclipse-.java-interfaces need to be synchronized "into" EA model - how to:
- - ####?

- Several deleted Eclipse-.java-interface-methods need to be synchronized "into" EA model - how to:
- - ####?

Forward:
=======
- Several new EA-interfaces need to be imported / synchronized into Eclipse-.java - how to:
- - ####?

- Several new EA-interface-methods need to be imported / synchronized into Eclipse-.java - how to:
- - ####?

- Several altered EA-interfaces need to be synchronized into Eclipse-.java - how to:
- - ####?

- Several altered EA-interface-methods need to be synchronized into Eclipse-.java - how to:
- - ####?

- Several deleted EA-interfaces need to be synchronized "into" Eclipse-.java - how to:
- - ####?

- Several deleted EA-interface-methods need to be synchronized "into" Eclipse-.java - how to:
- - ####?

Full Roundtrip:
==============
- Several changes (like those above) have been made to the Eclipse-.java-project,
 AND several changes (like those above) have been made to the EA-project concurrently - how to synchronize:
- - Impossible in bulk mode (for all changes at once or say in two steps)??
- - ####??

No screen shots please, just something like:

- OS > delete all ...?

- Eclipse > ... any? I suspect all synchronizing needs to be done within EA, not within Eclipse, right?

- EA > Project > SourceCodeEngineering > GeneratePackageSourceCode (or SynchronizePackageContents? Or ...?) > ...

Thank you in advance,
tomte (a paying EA customer ..., professional ed.)

[tomte]

... Join the club...

One week ago I did not intend to join a club nor have jokes.

I am looking for a way to use Enterprise Architect as a tool, not as toy. So if "only" documentation is lacking, ...

tomte

[tomte]

Though triggered by another Topic: "Importing Together-6.0.1 UML-1.4 models and Java code" (http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=suggestions;action=display;num=1162376357)

the same general communication / documentation problem flashes back again and again:

1. Sparxians, when replying in a forum, should not think in EA features but in what the user intends to do.

2. Sparx should not use cheap (students?) to write a cheap screen-shot-based pseudo-documentation, but should ask medium-experienced UML-users who are unexperienced EA-users to write down their in-order-to's / how-to's. Sparxians should just help them finding and writing down their own solutions. Finally re-edited, ok.

Discrete "do this, click that" do not document CONCEPTS. A concept may have a tool specific intro first but then concentrates on "in-order-to"s.

tomte

[vnedelcu]

Hi Thomas,

I see where you are getting. Generally you're right. It is hard sometimes to really understand what exactely one should do to accomplish a task, a merely simple one though. I messed up some projects, then I figured out my way around and I trying not to use features that I feel not secure in using them and that might mess things up.

Hi Paolo (please don't take me wrong)
How can you figure out a window is female and not male in English? Than, what is a ball, a ballpen, etc. From my knowledge, except for several objects (like ship, car) that clearly SHE for the ones that are using them, for all other objects there is no clear way in English to say male/female. One simply just does not use such differentiation in English.
Another example would the proposition "My friend lives in San Francisco." Can you tell is a HE or is a SHE. You can not. Same applies even stronger to objects.
Just my two cents.

And I guess you understood what Thomas meant to say (like him I am not a native English speaker) - but you wanted more specifics from his post. And he provides later when actually understood your point.
Good post both of you - thanks.

Vasile

[tomte]

Hello vnedelcu,

I also enjoyed Paolo's interesting and fully acceptable excurs on non-tautologic help.

The only problem is: As soon as a joke is the last post in a thread, the topic will dye.

Documentation on CONCEPTS actually is the most serious, most time-consuming matter to me.

Thank you for your reply,
tomte

[Eve]

How can you figure out a window is female and not male in English?

The word was widow, not window.

Here's a dictionary definition of widow.

A woman whose husband has died and who has not remarried.

The equivalent term for a male is widower.

[peter.zrnko]

I very happy to see an EA administrator explaining differences between window and widow. Have a nice day.

But what about "Synchronization Usecases"? I think what is Tomte asking for will be very useful.

[vnedelcu]

Hi all,

Perhaps it my fault since I choose a wrong word (WINDOW). I could've choose a different word to raise the case.
The issue of "Synchronization of ..." stands and I personally think that both Thomas and Paolo posted valid agruments and their intention (I do belive this) is to help Sparx provide a better products => thus they, as users of EA, will be happier because the tool really hleps. And this might be true for others as well.

Best,
Vasile

[tomte]

... and their intention [...] is to help Sparx provide a better products

Yes, and I even have four intentions:
1. Using a UML-2 tool that provides real roundtrip engineering
2. Having documentation of concepts that makes the tool usable
3. Helping Sparx to provide 1. and 2.
4. Finding criteria and reasoning to decide for this tool for this purpose and for that tool for that purpose.

I like Enterprise Architect for one-way designing and maybe one-way code generation.

EA has not been strongly advertized beeing a roundtrip tool, and EA comes with a very fair price for a design-only tool of good quality, additionally having some seldom-to-use-roundtrip features for EA tool specialists.

I think this is a general MDA limitation except for tools that follow a "the code is the model" approach.

My original criticism was the unusable documentation on Concepts of Synchronize, Generate, Export, Merge ..., and this still stands - but is solvable by the Sparxians. Would make me like EA even more ...  

tomte

[thomaskilian]

Thomas, you should make a search for Paolos CONSISTENCY crusade - just for the fun of it.

We live in hope - and to cite Bruce - we hope to live long