Author Topic: XML Round-Trip Engineering Feature Request  (Read 6841 times)

salayande

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XML Round-Trip Engineering Feature Request
« on: April 08, 2007, 03:39:16 am »
This is a feature request for round-trip engineering support for w3c XML Schema (support for RDF will be appreciated) in EA. Metadata development is increasingly becoming important in the semantic interoperability area.

We need to model, design and generate XML Schema from UML diagrams and generate documents, validate the documents in EA's in-built editor. We also need to re-use multiple imported International standards vocabulary including Open Travel, UNCEFACT CCTS, OAGIS and UBL among others. This is currently achievable in EA for other languages like Java.

Altova curently provides the free AltovaXML engine which may be licensed and used to add required support for XML in EA.

If anyone has achieved using the free altovaXML within EA, I'd like to know.

«Midnight»

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Re: XML Round-Trip Engineering Feature Request
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2007, 06:27:40 am »
Lovely idea!

There's been some (very limited) chatter about the various X.12 spin-offs here, but no traction as yet.

I agree that this is going to be a growth area, and EA would be well positioned if additional support were added.

David
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Hans

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Re: XML Round-Trip Engineering Feature Request
« Reply #2 on: April 09, 2007, 11:18:34 am »
I second this, David!

XSD roundtrip engeneering support with import, validation, and transformation facilities are what we need!

Hans

abcoates

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Re: XML Round-Trip Engineering Feature Request
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2008, 08:53:54 pm »
This one seems to have been outstanding for quite a while, but I want to back this one up.  A number of large organisations that I work with are looking at taking a model-based approach to XML Schemas, but round-tripping is necessary.  If EA doesn't do something about this, it could get beaten out for some projects by Eclipse (and IBM Rational's UML tools) or even Altova's UModel (which nicely roundtrips Schemas, albeit with a UML mapping that isn't as nice as EA's).

softwaredeveloper

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Re: XML Round-Trip Engineering Feature Request
« Reply #4 on: August 15, 2008, 04:34:21 pm »
Maybe a stupid question, but why don't you XMI export your project, do whatever you want to do in UModel (with AltovaXML) and reimport in EA afterwards ?

«Midnight»

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Re: XML Round-Trip Engineering Feature Request
« Reply #5 on: August 16, 2008, 12:42:46 am »
The problem would be ensuring that UModel would read the initial EA export, and that EA would successfully import the final UModel result.
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softwaredeveloper

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Re: XML Round-Trip Engineering Feature Request
« Reply #6 on: August 16, 2008, 04:09:11 am »
I'm using several UML tools and of course I did not need all combinations of XMI import / export, but for my needs (till now) UModel did import my EA files very well. Also the direction should work!?

«Midnight»

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Re: XML Round-Trip Engineering Feature Request
« Reply #7 on: August 16, 2008, 09:45:08 pm »
Sorry, but did you mean the other direction?
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softwaredeveloper

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Re: XML Round-Trip Engineering Feature Request
« Reply #8 on: August 17, 2008, 02:46:27 am »
 :( sorry, yes of course I meant "the other direction should work" (but as written above: most times I use EA => UModel)

salayande

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Re: XML Round-Trip Engineering Feature Request
« Reply #9 on: August 21, 2008, 01:15:15 am »
Why acquire an additional tool (UModel) to achieve what EA claims to be able to do (model driven development)?

The fact that members of this community are considering this option suggests that there is an obvious gap that need be filled by Sparxsystem.

The fact that new kids on the block (UModel) can achieve this in their early versions suggest that Sparxsystems management of its user feature requests is not as responsive as it should be. We are now not talking about an organization the size of IBM or Microsoft. The situation could be much better.

Sparxsystem appears to have adopted a business / revenue model made popular by Microsoft, that is:

Develop a 3rd party development community around the product to fill feature gaps as Add-Ins.

This strategy works where the gap is commercially worthwile for any developer, that is, the developer can create a complete solution that other developers are willing to pay for.

The problem with this strategy in this instance is that an Add-in which simply facilitates that part of XML development that is widely supported by many tools in the market (some being open source) is unlikely to generate interest from Add-In developers.

An Add-In that solely sets out to resolve this problem is unlikely to generate interest except to highlight problems in Sparxsystems product / business development process.

For a fresh thinking about what I understand as a complete standards based enterprise engineering solution, I suggest community members look at http://www.knowgravity.com/eng/value/mdee.htm and review the collateral. The Model Driven Enterprise Engineering (MDEE) and the CASSANDRA Intelligent Support platforms are of interest. ;)

regards

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