Topics

151

Bugs and Issues / New forum - wot's this mean

« on: February 19, 2008, 10:14:27 pm »

At the bottom of the page there is a doohickey in the "Users Online" section, on the RHS, that looks like a pair of cricket wickets with 4 bails on each, one is black and has an umpire called "EA Administrator" standing at close square leg, the other is blue and has an umpire called "Global Administrator" at close square leg.


Am I missing something?


bruce

EDIT: For those may not be so familiar.  The verticals, called "stumps" (5 thereof) are topped by "bails" (=Count(stumps)-1)

152

Bugs and Issues / New forum - security issue

« on: February 19, 2008, 01:35:06 pm »

Login in and then browse elsewhere... do some work  

Reload the forum in your browser,  ensure that you have been "timed out" ("Good <<insert random time word>> Guest" just below yabb button bar and login form at the bottom)

Dont fill in the login name, just click on the [Login] "buttonsquare" at the bottom.

Note the hello, does it show you "you"?
If so just click [Home] and voila! you is now logged in.

(Just a heads up in case ....)

bruce

153

Uml Process / subState to State transitions  - mental block

« on: April 04, 2007, 12:04:19 am »

I'm a bit stumped here.  I don't even know whether I've got a problem or not or if I do whether to do something about it ..or not.

N.B. Hereafter, (NAP= that's not a problem, that's how the "boat" is required to be)

I have this set of things that fit into an organizational heirarchy (NAP). The heirarchy is structured and finite (NAP), in fact three levels only.  Each level can be in a defined and  organized  set of states, each level having the same states (NAP).

There are 4 states for the levels:

• proposed
  
• active
  
• obsolete
  
• notational
  

and a whole shipload of transition constraints. (NAP)

Thank you for your patience, here's the beginning of the problem.

"Proposed" has three substates:

• draft
  
• developmental
  
• ready
  

There is only one state transition, I am currently trying to flesh out proposed-->active.
One of the transition constraints is "only if substate = ("developmental" or "ready").  IOW, if the item is in substate "draft" then the proposed-->active transition is illegal.  This is again NAP (I could just show transitions between the two valid substates and "active")...

BUT
What I want to show is :
You can go from proposed-->active regardless of your substate, unless you are specifically prohibited! IOW, the real constraint at the state level is "!(substate = draft)".  This is fine today, BUT tomorrow the number of substates will change (they have done more than once already).

So, neither rendition ( subState--> state, or state --[Condition]--> state )is really giving me much joy.  

Any "good practice" advice? (Apart from the obvious, I lack both the flexibility and the plumbig tools.)  

bruce

154

Uml Process / Hamlet III.iv.207 (on significant use cases)

« on: March 20, 2007, 06:47:37 am »

[glb]"For 'tis the sport to have the engineer'
Hoist with his own petard."                 *[/glb]

Greetings Urfbeings.

About a solar circumnavigation or so ago, I rant'd, rav'd and ratted on about "Log In" not being a significant use case.  The wonderful thing about history is how often the bugger sneaks up behind you [size=16]and bites you on the arse.[/size]

I, currently

"have this machine, a dream of a machine" (S. Lem "The Cyberiad")...

that contains a putative use case selectProject.  Now, according to my internal high-priestess, this use case  has no outcome of significance to the user.  It "merely" alters the scope of view that the system presents to the user for subsequent, more functionally significant, use cases.

Fine - OK - mea culpa - I have no problem with that.  

What I do have a problem with is that, like history, this damn thing keeps reappearing throughout the system with design implications.  In short, the "use case" is invocable at the user's whim, regardless of and with due or undue disrespect to, the current state of both the system itself and of it's data state.  The implementation answer is simple (or not, depending on the implementation) - be it event.throw, jRaise(_event) or even Win32.DisplayBSOD.exec  ...

What I want to know is how does one convey to a bunch of lazy, good for nothing, overpaid, careless, sub-moronic code-lathe using, apprentice cutters that they have to consider and possibly cope with this event throughout each and every one of their feeble attempts to turn my "Eroica" manuscipt into some VB/C++/.Net rap performance.

In other words, HTF do I model such a non-significant use case with such important design/develop implications?

Any thoughts

bruce

p.s.

p.p.s. I forgot what the p.s. i was going to add was  


* For those of you with interest in the origins and specificity of Angle-ish see
http://www.leoyan.com/global-language.com/enfolded/output4.php?file=HWORKS2500/HW-2577+6cn.xml

155

Uml Process / Stupendiously stumped on Stubs

« on: September 20, 2006, 08:02:21 pm »

Total cranial implosion   :-/

I am trying to develop a component model for this new job and show explicitly where some components are replaced by "stubs" in the test bed.  For example, the component "SWIFT EMS" is replaced by the "SWIFT Message Simulator" component.

Any one got a idea of what the "correct" connector what I should use is?   "Delegate" looked promising but its not that.

bruce

156

Uml Process / Abstract child of an instantiable class

« on: August 10, 2006, 10:39:30 pm »

Is it conceptually "fit and proper" to have a specialised class marked as abstract when its parent(s) are instantiable?

I got asked this today and cant find an answer.

Further, is it allowable (or more correctly, how can one model) a class that is abstract in certain (general) circumstances, but instantiable in other (priviledged) circumstances?

bruce

157

Uml Process / Is this reasonable?

« on: December 14, 2004, 01:44:32 pm »

I am modelling a web app for testing purposes.   The model is  very user view oriented.  There are about 22 use cases of interest in the "consumer" package, including the obvious frequent visitor membership set and thus "Log In".

The immediate problem is to come to grips with all the possible flows out of a page from the links thereon.  So we are modelling the flows as activity diagrams under each use case.  

Now I just want to get a bit of a sanity check on something.  A good example is the Log In flow, the first (and last) action in the flow is "Enter Log In Credentials".  There is a link from this action representing the click of the "Log In" button on the web page with the constraint [authentication=OK].

i.e.  (   Enter log in credentials   )  ------- Log In <<button>>  [authentication=OK] ------------->

Now here's the question.  I reckon that the next activity is the automatic invocation of the "Review IBE bookings" use case.   So in a nutshell, does it make sense to have a use case as a target on a control flow link, thus rendering the use case as an "activity".

It looks to me to be a good way to do it - and I'll have many more instance of the same thing.  Anyone see anything wrong with this approach?

tia
Bruce

158

Uml Process / "Alternative" requirements

« on: March 04, 2004, 05:32:41 pm »

I have not come across this before and thought I would put it to you folks for some input.

We have situation where the client has specified a set of alternative requirements and asked for input as to the impacts and costs of each alternative.

By way of example, one of the primary requirements is that a webserver failover feature be implemented that includes the need to mirror some active files between two file systems.

The (very reasonable) client has suggested that we could mirror at two levels
- total mirroring whereby the synchronization is done at a periodicity less than the heartbeat period for the failover
- occasional mirroring done at a less frequent interval, say every 30 minutes.

They have asked for infomational material regarding the alternatives in order to make a decision on which way they want to go.

My problem is "how to model alternative requirments".  Each of the scenarios above has implications that affect subsequent requirements and on the use case, component and deployment models.

b.t.w. we are using external requirments at this stage of the project.

Has anyone had a similar experience and can you offer your "best way" to build a set of models to represent the impact of the alternatives?

tia
Bruce

159

Uml Process / Collaboration Messages advice

« on: February 17, 2004, 09:12:27 pm »

According to Iconix, actors should not have associations with or pass messages to controller objects.

I am trying to sort out in my own mind how best to model active web pages.

The user sends a GET message to the web server listener which responds with a html page.  Now, on that page is a form that has a submit action of POST.  The server listener is supposed to receive that request, process it and generate a response page via its page engine.

It appears to me, that either I have to include the browser and webserver listener which are components not objects in the collaboration chain, or the user can send a message to a controller (the ASP script)?

Has anyone got any good ideas?

160

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Element status setting???

« on: November 17, 2004, 05:57:52 pm »

What am I doing wrong - after excecution the element is entered, the name,notes and type etc is correct but the status is set to Proposed?

Function addreq(desc As String, dets As String) As String
   Dim rr As Object
   Set rr = reqtspkg.Elements.AddNew(desc,  "Requirement")
   rr.Notes = dets
   rr.Status = "Approved"
   rr.Type = "Functional"
   rr.Update
   reqtspkg.Elements.Refresh
   addreq = rr.ElementGUID
End Function

tia
Bruce

161

Automation Interface, Add-Ins and Tools / Patterns for virtual documents

« on: January 21, 2004, 02:36:48 pm »

I am trying to create a set of standardised documentation items for use across many models.
I have created a set of virtual document items that work really well for the various standard models we are using (Requirements Model, Analysis Model, Design Model, Implementation Model) and now I want to make them available for ease of use by the various teams.

Each model contains (amongst other things) a Documentation package, set to be excluded from RTF reports, for containing the virtual doco classes.  I tried to save each doco as a pattern, which the team could import as needed for their component.  This seemed to work fine - they can add the doco pattern and give it a name to suit them. However, when we try to generate the rtf report all we get is the report template notes - none of the report elements (i.e. the virtual doc class attributes) are generated.

Looking at the EA database I see that the attribute classifier for the original virtual doco is set to the object ID of the included package but the attributes of the virtual doco created from the pattern do not have a classifer.  This makes sense, the created element attributes need to be pointed to the proper elements in the current repository.

Now to the question(s).

Is it possible to make the class attributes "prompt for classifier"?
If so, when I create the pattern, how do I tell the system that they are t be prompted for?

tia
Bruce