Pat and Barry, (01)
Some comments on the issue of multilingual support. (02)
JFS>> The stated goal of Common Logic was to avoid or at least mitigate
>> such [syntactic] controversies by using an *abstract syntax* that
>> brings a large number of concrete syntaxes under a common semantic
>> umbrella. (03)
BS> No disagreement here. (04)
Good. I'm happy to find an important area of agreement. (05)
PH> A multilingual repository would be a lot more useful if it came
> with recommended ways to translate between the languages. For OWL
> and FOL/CL this is now thoroughly understood, for example. (06)
I agree. But I would make the point stronger by claiming that
such translations are more than useful -- they're a prerequisite
for a multilingual repository. (07)
PH> One can define a sublanguage of CLIF which is virtually isomorphic
> to the OWL abstract syntax. If I ever get time (in a month or so,
> maybe) I will write this up in detail as an alternative OWL syntax. (08)
That would be an excellent exercise, which would be of enormous
interest to everybody. I hope you can get at least a sketch of it
done soon. (09)
PH> For things like UML it is much more problematic, as there is not
> even a common underlying semantic framework within which to compare
> such notations with logics. (010)
That issue is complicated by various trends within the UML community.
Some of the UML supporters suggested and developed various logical
foundations for years, but others have been pushing UML toward a
more procedural approach. (011)
As one example of a logic-based approach, there is a group called
PUML (Precise UML) that has been defining the UML diagtrams in Z.
See the excerpts below. There's another group, called F-UML,
that has been defining UML in Object Z. There's also an approach
based on category theory: (012)
http://www1.coe.neu.edu/~jsmith/Publications/ecoop.pdf (013)
This abundance of approaches is discouraging because it implies
that none of them has reached a critical mass of support. My
recommended approach would be simpler: (014)
1. Don't wait for the UML community to do anything. (015)
2. Don't attempt to define all the UML diagrams formally. (016)
3. Instead, use a subset of the UML diagramming conventions
for which the mapping to Common Logic is obvious. (017)
4. Supplement the diagrams with a version of controlled English
that maps to full CL (an example is CLCE -- Common Logic
Controlled English -- but other notations such as ACE would
be quite acceptable.) (018)
5. If anybody wants to do full UML, encourage them, but don't
hold your breath waiting. (019)
John
_________________________________________________________________________ (020)
Source: http://www4.informatik.tu-muenchen.de/publ/papers/EFLR98b.pdf (021)
Developing the UML as a Formal Modelling Notation (022)
A. Evans, R. France, K. Lano, B. Rumpe (023)
Abstract (024)
The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is rapidly emerging as a de-facto
standard for
modelling OO systems. Given this role, it is imperative that the UML
have a well-defined,
fully explored semantics. Such semantics is required in order to ensure that
UML concepts are precisely stated and defined. In this paper we describe and
motivate an approach to formalizing UML in which formal specification
techniques
are used to gain insight into the semantics of UML notations and
diagrams. We
present work carried out by the Precise UML (PUML) group on the
development of a
precise semantic model for UML class diagrams. The semantic model is
used as the
basis for a set of diagrammatical transformation rules, which enable formal
deductions to be made about UML class diagrams. It is also shown how
these rules
can be used to verify whether one class diagram is a valid refinement
(design) of
another. Because these rules are presented at the diagrammatical level,
it will be
argued that UML can be successfully used as a formal modelling tool
without the
notational complexities that are commonly found in formal specification
techniques. (025)
5. Summary and Open Issues (026)
In this paper we outlined and illustrated an approach to formalizing the
UML.
The objective of our efforts is to make the UML itself a precise
modelling notation so
that it can be used as the basis for a rigorous software development
method. However,
it must first be determined how such a formalization can best be carried
out, and what
practical purpose it can serve. This paper aims to contribute to this
ongoing
discussion. (027)
The benefits of formalization can be summarized as follows: (028)
• Lead to a deeper understanding of OO concepts, which in turn can lead
to more mature use of technologies. (029)
• The UML models become amenable to rigorous analysis. For example,
rigorous consistency checks within and across models can be supported. (030)
• Rigorous refinement techniques can be developed. (031)
An interesting avenue to explore is the impact a formalized UML can have
on OO
design patterns and on the development of rigorous domain-specific software
development notations. Domain-specific UML patterns can be used to bring UML
notations closer to a user's real-world constructs. Such patterns can
ease the task of
creating, reading, and analyzing models of software requirements and
designs.
An integrated approach to formalization of UML models is needed in order
to provide
a practical means of analyzing these models. Current work on compositional
semantics [1] has used techniques for theory composition to combine semantic
interpretations of different parts of an OO model set. (032)
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