Dear Pier, all,
I'm also new to USDL, and I have just done a quick look at it.
>From my understanding, USDL aims to be a formal modelling language to describe services.
With USDL, a system is described in terms of provided services by means of a metmodel including several packages.
For each service, the different packages are used to provide a formal description of the input the service needs to work properly, the output it provides to the service's consumer, and also other information that could be useful for a complete description of the service (including interaction information used to define how to interact with a service).
In conclusion, USLD seems to me as an alternative to UML, but more Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) oriented.
So we may have to choose to use UML or USDL.
As a personal comment, I don't see any advantage in using USDL instead of UML or viceversa.
For sure, most of us can have already experience in using UML, which is a proven modelling language and it has been used in a big number of projects, included EU funded project, while I don't have figures about the utilization of USDL and maybe we may need to spend too much time in learning how it works.
Another possible advantage for UML is that there exist a lot of tools to develop UML diagrams (some of them are even free like StarUML), while I found just one tool to develop USDL descriptions (a tryout version realized as an Eclipse plug-in, but I don't know if it is stable or if it is complete).
Perhaps somebody else has much experience with USDL and can add more comments?
Best regards
Marco
----- Original Message -----
From: Garino Pierangelo
To: Marco Castrucci
Cc: fiware-i2nd
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 2:00 PM
Subject: R: [Fiware-i2nd] Proposal for specification conventions (I2ND49)
Dear Marco,
yesterday during the WPL/WPA confcall I mentioned that as I2ND we prepared a proposal for specs conventions etc, and I have been invited to submit it through the mailing list, so that we can start the discussion on that basis.
Before doing that, I'd like to have your comment about one point: we're proposing the use of UML as modeling language, while I noticed that in other chapters (mainly Security one) there is a proposal to adopt USDL. I'm new to USDL (as to UML in fact.) so could you tell me/us if you had a look at it, and maybe provide some comparison note about the two, e.g. whether they are overlapping or complementary or whatever else, etc?
Many thanks
BR
Pier
Da: Marco Castrucci [mailto:castrucci at dis.uniroma1.it]
Inviato: giovedì 6 ottobre 2011 15:20
A: Garino Pierangelo
Cc: fiware-i2nd
Oggetto: Re: [Fiware-i2nd] Proposal for specification conventions (I2ND49)
Sure, you are correct. I missed the word "case".
BR
Marco
----- Original Message -----
From: Garino Pierangelo
To: Marco Castrucci
Cc: fiware-i2nd
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2011 3:03 PM
Subject: R: [Fiware-i2nd] Proposal for specification conventions (I2ND49)
Dear Marco,
thanks for the update. One minor note, I modified point 2 of the final summary in the following way (the word 'case' was missing):
2. UML Component diagrams to specify the structure of the system. Starting from the UML Use case diagrams.
If this is the meaning for you too, I can upload the modified document replacing the original one.
BR
Pier
Da: Marco Castrucci [mailto:castrucci at dis.uniroma1.it]
Inviato: giovedì 6 ottobre 2011 14:52
A: Garino Pierangelo; fiware-i2nd
Oggetto: Re: [Fiware-i2nd] Proposal for specification conventions (I2ND49)
Dear Pier,
I uploaded an updated version following your comments.
You can find it here: https://forge.fi-ware.eu/docman/view.php/10/452/I2ND+proposal+for+convention+to+be+used+for+specifications_v0.2.docx
Ciao
Marco
----- Original Message -----
From: Marco Castrucci
To: Garino Pierangelo ; fiware-i2nd
Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 12:55 PM
Subject: Re: [Fiware-i2nd] Proposal for specification conventions (I2ND49)
Dear Pier,
find my comments in line in red.
Best regards
Marco
----- Original Message -----
From: Garino Pierangelo
To: Marco Castrucci ; fiware-i2nd
Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2011 11:20 AM
Subject: R: Proposal for specification conventions (I2ND49)
Dear Marco,
thanks a lot for your contribution.
I have some comments/questions/doubts which I try to summarise here:
- I'm not familiar with UML (it might sound strange, but I never had to use it in the past), so when you specify it is a modeling language 'mainly' used for design and specs of Object Oriented software systems, do you mean that its use is not tied to that kind of programming paradigms/languages, but it can be adopted in a broader sense?
Exactly: it can be used to model any sw (or even hw) system, and do not impose constraints on the programming paradigm/language to be used for the development of the system
- For this reason, is the use of class diagrams limiting us or not?
The concept of class is derived from the object-oriented programming paradigm. Anyway, I don't see problems in developing a system described by means of class diagram, using another programming paradigm. In fact, in our case Class diagrams can be used to describe the interfaces of the system, detailing the functionalities exposed, with its needed input and the provided output. There are no limitations then on the implementation methodology of such interface.
- Don't we risk to adopt a top-down modeling approach which is not optimized for FI-WARE, where we already deal with existing portions of the system (i.e. the assets)?
In case of specification of already available assets, we will have to perform a "reverse engineering" activity, as we will have to create specifications starting from the already available system.
- Concerning point 1 in the suggested use of UML (summary at page 4): in the Agile methodology adopted by FI-WARE, EPICs mean 'work to be done' (see also my yesterday's mail). I wouldn't propose to use them as basis for the creation of Use case diagrams. I would rather start from the 'Product vision', i.e. the High Level Description of our GEs to create such diagrams.
OK. I'll change the document according and I will upload an updated version soon.
As a general comment, I proposed the use of UML as it was also proposed by many of WP7 partners when collecting information about tool for design and specification last week. Of course, if there are other proposals for instruments to be used, we can discuss them and find out the best alternative.
Any further input by other partners to this discussion is of course welcome!
BR
Pier
Da: Marco Castrucci [mailto:castrucci at dis.uniroma1.it]
Inviato: martedì 4 ottobre 2011 10:24
A: fiware-i2nd
Cc: Garino Pierangelo
Oggetto: Proposal for specification conventions (I2ND49)
Dear I2ND partners,
as decided during our last conf call, we have to make a joint proposal for the conventions to be adopted for FIWARE specifications (action point I2ND49).
Please find here https://forge.fi-ware.eu/docman/view.php/10/452/I2ND+proposal+for+convention+to+be+used+for+specifications_v0.1.docx our proposal.
In brief, we propose to use the folowing 4 UML diagrams:
- Use case diagrams
- Component diagrams
- Sequence diagrams
- Class diagrams
In addition, we also propose the use of StarUML as a free tool to depict UML diagrams.
Comments and feedbacks are welcome so that we can finalize our proposal by next Friday (7 October) and then Pier can discuss it at project level.
Best regards
Marco
-----------------------------------------------
Dr. Ing. Castrucci Marco
University of Rome "Sapienza"
V. Ariosto 25, 00185 Rome, Italy
Tel (+39) 06 77274039 (037)
Fax (+39) 06 77274033
Mob (+39) 348 7709997
email: castrucci at dis.uniroma1.it
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