Nassi-Shneiderman diagrams anyone?

[Paolo F Cantoni]

That fount of all knowledge Wikipedia states (what is, hopefully, commonly known): Nassi-Shneiderman diagrams are (almost) isomorphic with flowcharts. Everything you can represent with a Nassi-Shneiderman diagram you can also represent with a flowchart. For flowcharts of programs, just about everything you can represent with a flowchart you can also represent with a Nassi-Shneiderman diagram.

I'm interested in Nassi-Shneiderman diagrams to document some low-level processes (what might typically, in Engineering parlants, be called "Work Instructions".

Anyone tried this with EA?

I think I could use Automation to draw a Nassi-Shneiderman form of an exiting Activity Diagram.  The problem would be to trigger the shapescript, since I only want to trigger the N-S form on specific diagrams.

Any support for a feature request to Sparx to provide support for this transform?

Paolo

[Geert Bellekens]

Not from me.
I really don't like the Nassi-Schniederman diagrams.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Party pooper!  

Still, I realise N-S diagrams aren't to everyone's taste, but when you work for an Engineering company...

Thanks anyway for your input, Geert

Paolo

[«Midnight»]

Hi Paolo,

Just to be clear about things...

Can you be sure that (in your paradigm at least) no feature of flowcharts that N-S diagrams cannot represent would be necessary to describe low-level processes?

David

PS: I'm taken aback at an ambiguity in your post. You are always so careful about such things, I am compelled to ask: What do "parlants" have to do with this? For that matter which kind of parlant are you referring to? Is your domain of reference French talking? Or do you mean something more along the lines of an altavoz?

[RoyC]

Methinks Paolo intended to write 'engineering parlance'; that is, the terms and meanings used by engineers.

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Methinks Paolo intended to write 'engineering parlance'; that is, the terms and meanings used by engineers.

Indeed he did but forgot to run the spell checker...  

Paolo

[Paolo F Cantoni]

Hi Paolo,

Just to be clear about things...

Can you be sure that (in your paradigm at least) no feature of flowcharts that N-S diagrams cannot represent would be necessary to describe low-level processes?

David

Well, for this application, yes.  It's about creating the Engineering Work Instructions - so they have to be humanly intelligible (without Rocket Science training)  

But, in the general case, if there were constructs in an Activity Diagram that couldn't be rendered, then EA could just say so...

I'm envisaging the ability to render the diagram as an N-S in the same way one can render the diagram as an Element List - EXCEPT that it would need to be able to also be rendered in a Diagram Frame (which the Element List can't).

Paolo