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Re: [ontolog-forum] UML and Semantics

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2012 02:52:17 -0500
Message-id: <50BDABB1.4020200@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Dave, William, and Ed,    (01)

JFS
>> E-R diagrams were introduced in 1976.  Even earlier, there were
>> Bachman diagrams, type hierarchies, and Petri nets.  Versions
>> of all those diagrams were combined in UML,    (02)

DCH
> No.  UML was developed specifically to support object-oriented program
> design, and had only minimal relationship to the earlier E/R notations.    (03)

I agree that the "Three Amigos" who joined forces to develop UML
and its diagrams had a specific kind of methodology intended
for a specific style of programming.    (04)

WF
> First of all, object-oriented program design was developed specifically
> to support creating programs that ***were*** models of the world, just
> as E/R models were intended to do.  And, just as o-o was subverted into
> models of software for software's sake by most but not all, so too,
> whatever the originators said, E/R was USED by developers as a way
> to diagram relational databases, not to model the world, except by
> a few wierdos, (yours truly included.)  And, those same wierdos used
> UML in the same way, the first day it was delivered.    (05)

Yes.  I think of UML diagrams as a kind of graphic notation for various
subsets of logic with various built-in ontologies associated with each
diagram type.    (06)

DCH
> There are no constraints as to what constitutes a "class".  It might
> be a class of things in the world ("person", "project", etc.), or
> a class of things to be manipulated by the computer...    (07)

WF
> Good, from this it follows that one is free to put whatever constraints
> one wants on what is going to constitute a class.  That's the way I like it.
> Let our languages be under-specified, so we can use them as need be.    (08)

I agree.  Adding axioms makes it possible to do more detailed reasoning.
But it also creates the danger of inconsistency.  I like the slogan
for dealing with leftovers in the refrigerator:    (09)

    "When in doubt, throw it out."    (010)

DCH
> ... in my latest patterns book, Enterprise Model Patterns: Describing
> the World, I decided to use UML instead of my favorite notation.
> By addressing the premises I just mentioned, it turns out I could use
> a modified form of the UML class notation to create semantic models.    (011)

That approach is consistent with William's suggestion:  throw out the
unwanted or unneeded details associated with the UML methodology.
Then you get an underspecified version you can tailor to your needs.    (012)

EB
> David has been arguing for 15 years that UML cannot be used to do E-R
> modeling, while many of us, including Jim Rumbaugh, Jim Odell, and
> apparently William Frank, not to mention Ed Barkmeyer, have been doing
> just that for all or most of that same time period.  Admittedly, we had
> to ignore what UML v1.4 said some of the constructs meant, but that has
> not been true since the advent of UML v2...    (013)

Each of the UML diagram types combines a special-purpose subset of
logic with some built-in ontology. When they're applied to a new domain,
some adjustment may be necessary. But a lot of people are using UML
diagrams for ontology.  Just type "UML ontology" to Google.    (014)

John    (015)

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