Messages

1

Suggestions and Requests / Re: Requested Features

« on: April 16, 2003, 07:17:44 pm »

3. Business Process Modelling (BPM) : appeals to users when you can simulate process, calculate costs and evaluate the impact of changing time and or resources and or cost and see the results of the process.

I have used MS Project to do this with some sucess on a large process.  The only problem is that MS Project doesn't allow iterative/reverse direction activity dependencies.  Not a problem if you are simulating the once only "time through the process" or the "total process cost".

EA .csv exp[ort should provide a "bridge" between EA and MS Project.  Haven't tried it but it should work.

Hope this helps.

PhilR

2

General Board / Re: Deployment diagram / Relationship matrix

« on: October 15, 2002, 06:50:44 pm »

How do you get round this so that your deployment diagrams have the correct shapes?

Stephen

Try View|Options|Behaviour and make sure that "Instance has classifier style" is checked.  Then look at the diagram properties and make sure that "Use stereotype icons" is checked.

On what is "legal" and "illegal" in the UML.  Many of the statements in the spec and the Amigos books are simple usage suggestions.  You need to check the UML metamodel to be certain if something is illegal or not.

For example I have found it really useful to have an association between a Use Case and some Classes which describe the data flowing between the actor and use case.  I have never seen this anywhere else but since both Classes and Use Cases are UML "classifiers" it is perfectly legal to have an association between them.

There is a catch however - the UML meta model is mainly for devoted insomniacs!

I am not sure how closely EA follows the metamodel.  There is an option View|Options|Diagram|"Strict UML syntax" which you can check.  it would be nice to think that if this was checked, the tool would prevent you from illegal usage.

Any comments sparx?

Phil.

3

General Board / Re: Model Document

« on: August 17, 2007, 06:43:47 pm »

Which of course is only available from the Project menu when you select a model element as opposed to a package!

I have been right-clicking on the class in the project browser and assuming that there is no option to run the .rtf report generator for an individual model elelement.

Thanks :-)

4

General Board / Model Document

« on: August 16, 2007, 09:06:35 pm »

I have followed the instructions for model documents in the help file but when I generate an .rtf report I get details of the model document class itself not the packages I have included in the class.

Probably obvious but enlighten me :-)

5

General Board / Re: Package Security

« on: August 17, 2007, 06:52:22 pm »

Thanks.  That confirms my understanding.  I have read the 7.0 release notes and nothing significant seems to have been added.

Pity.  The lack of this feature prevents EA being used as a true enterprise repository.

6

General Board / Package Security

« on: August 16, 2007, 09:09:06 pm »

I have a single shared repository (project) with version control enabled.  Is there any way I can hide the content of certain packages from certain users?  

The packages might contain commercially sensitive information that I don't want contractors, customers, vendors etc seeing?

7

General Board / Re: Apologies

« on: August 17, 2007, 06:48:26 pm »

Forums area a great way to ask questions and provide answers but a useless way to organise knowledge.  Wikis are much better at this.

Since a lot of support for EA is community-based is there a role for an official Sparx wiki (I know there is a user group one but irt doesn't seem to have reached critical mass yet).

How about an even more radical suggestion.  Sparxs initially populates the wiki with the help files and then allows the user community to clarify and expand.  Sparx could then "harvest" the contributed knowleded into future releases.

Hey it works for an encyclopedia :-)

8

General Board / Apologies

« on: August 16, 2007, 09:04:57 pm »

When I search this forum and follow a link to one of the threads it seems to be impossible to return to the search results without re-entering the search criteria.

This makes good forum etiquette difficult and I apologise in advance if the enxt two quireis I post have been answered numerous times - I don't have the time or the will to type my search string in numerous times.

9

General Board / Announce

« on: October 02, 2006, 07:10:23 pm »

"Tips trick and traps" page for EA at http://ea.lonsdalesystems.com

Phil Robinson

10

General Board / Re: Alternatives to RUP

« on: September 25, 2002, 07:19:07 pm »

I agree.  The ICONIX process is very good.  One of the things I especially like is that you can see the whole process and its components on a single diagram.  I reckon these days that, if it won't fit on a single page, then you are going to have trouble communicating it to everyone

I would still strongly encourage people to tailor even a "lightweight" methodology to their needs.  Methodologies are like religions.  All of them have some essential truths but sometimes their "followers" become more interested in "being right" than applying the wisdom.

Some "trivia" on robustness analysis.  It was originally a part of Objectory, amigo Jacobson's methodology.  It made a brief appearnce in RUP but has recently disappeared from it.  I am guessing that this is because it is hard to formalise the meaning of the elements in a robustness diagram.  This is at odds with the UML which has a strict meta-model.

Phil.

11

General Board / Alternatives to RUP

« on: September 20, 2002, 12:04:12 am »

We got to discussing alternatives to RUP in the EJB and UML thread http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=general&action=display&num=1031892685.

I promised to post some alternative approaches to using RUP and decided to start a new thread with it - enjoy.

Phil.

OPEN Process Framework
http://www.donald-firesmith.com
http://www.donald-firesmith.com/SiteMap.html
An ideal companion for EA.  Bad news - requires a fee for commercial use.  Good news - the fee is US$99 :-)
This site requires a bit of exploration before you realise just how good it is.  You get a 30 day evaluation for free.

MBASE Electronic Process Guide
USC Center for Software Engineering
http://sunset.usc.edu/research/MBASE/EPG/
http://sunset.usc.edu/classes/cs577b_2001/guidelines/MBASEv2_2.pdf
Guru (but not Amigo) Barry Boehm is behind this framework.  There are lots of good papers and other stuff here as well.

German Government's V-Model
http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/uniform/gdpa/
A more traditional appraoch but this site has the whole life-cycle methodology available online.  The methodology is in the public domain.

Unified Process (The Book)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201571692/lonsdalesystems
http://home.earthlink.net/~salhir/UnderstandingTheUP.PDF
The text book contains enough details for most experienced people to design their own light weight process.  However, things like Project Management, Configuration Management, Quality etc are missing.  These are some of the things that the 'R' in RUP adds to the UP.

Extreme Programming
http://www.xprogramming.com/
http://www.extremeprogramming.org/
http://www.objectmentor.com/publications/RUPvsXP.pdf
Probably needs no introduction...  (Someone want to start a new thread on the role of EA and XP?)

Software Engineering Body of Knowledge
http://www.swebok.org/
Provides a brief but authorative description of each of the software engineering "disciplines" with extensive references.

Project Management Body of Knowledge
http://www.pmi.org/
Extensive description of the project management discipline.  Used to be able to download the entire manual, now only some sections are available for download.  Can purchase full manual at reaonable cost.

Software Capability Maturity Model
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmm/cmm.html
While it has come in for a lot of criticism recently, the CMM does provide lots of "best practice" pointers if you use it soley as a reference (achieveing accreditaion is a different matter).  Various manuals can be downloaded for free.

12

General Board / PHP Code Generation

« on: February 02, 2004, 08:56:08 pm »

Anyone else tried the new PHP code generation?

It doesn't seem to work for me - just generates a balnk file.  The code templates are all blank as well.

Using build 659 - any ideas?

PhilR

13

General Board / Re: How does EA compare to Describe from Embarcade

« on: April 02, 2003, 06:24:15 pm »

Havyck and Steve,

Thanks for the agreement.  I know the comparison is with Embarcadero but I have to add to Steve's comment on Rose.  If you have ever tried to use SoDA, you will never ever complain about reporting in EA again.

Steve, I think you capture the complexity of the Rational product suite well.  I suppose that a complex, marketing-oriented suite of products such as Rose would have to end up being owned by a certain company renown for that sort of thing.  Guess what?  Thats exactly what happened

Phil

14

General Board / Re: How does EA compare to Describe from Embarcade

« on: April 01, 2003, 09:54:48 pm »

Maybe I'm a bit slow When I first read this I thought that the negatives were about the Embarcadero product.  I guess if you are going to spout forth it would be a good idea to be articulate  

Some of the points are incorrect.

03. No integrations with Requirements Tools, such as DOORS, Caliber RM, and Requisite Pro.
04. Poor reporting capabilities.
07. Has no integration with database modeling.

Point 3.  Check out EAReqPro.  Check out the recent thread on integrating EA with DOORS using .csv files.

Point 4.  In addition to the built in .rtf and HTML reporting.  Reports can be produced via the automation interface or an ODBC compliant report generator (Crystal Reports etc).  Finally you can open the database in MS Access and report away to your heart's content.

Point 5.  Completely wrong. EA implements a data modelling UML profile and will generate SQL schemas.

I can comment on the other points but hope thay are more accurate that the ones I am certain about.

Once you are articulate, practice accuracy  

PhilR

15

General Board / Clipping on Diagrams

« on: March 19, 2003, 06:37:24 pm »

Does anyone else still get clipping problems on diagrams when cutting and pasting?

I cut and paste to Powerpoint and sometimes get the edges of the diagram clipped.

My solution is to surround the diagram with a white boundary element.  This ensures nothing is clipped but does not appear on my Powerpoint slide.

BTW I have been producing prenetation quality graphis using EA and choosing suitable colour for diagram elements etc etc.  I may even uninstall Visio some day...

PhilR