Both aggregation and composition are special kinds of associations. They are used to represent ownership or a whole/part relationship. But when should you use them? I am always confused and I have difficulties to remember which one to use when. It is pretty simple though, composition is just a stronger relationship than aggregation. An example [...]
Browsing Posts in Modeling
For really a long time, StarUML was the predominant tool for all my UML modelling needs. Although it is based on UML v1.4, its modelling features are just brilliant. It has, however, one insuperable impediment: it is a dead open source project way beyond all resurrection boundaries. In deep secrecy I tried different other UML [...]
Template-based code generation in fact is pretty easy. It very much resembles ordinary mail merge. You create some (sophisticated) template, fill in all the black holes with metadata from the model, and voila! All code is generated automagically. A happy ending. But no, often that is not the case. The pain is always in the [...]
After Generating Database Objects from an UML Model you are desperately in need of a data access layer (DAL) and a business logic layer (BLL). Today we are going to generate the famous Business Entities. After executing that funny sql-script we generated from UML previously, you are the proud owner of a database. Since I [...]
In this mini-series of one post, I’ll show you how to generate SQL-script from an UML model. First, you need a model. This can be any model, but here I use an UML model. The class diagram on the left shows a simple model consisting of a parent class and a related child class. Both [...]
If you are a more functional focussed person, you are probably thinking: who cares. And if you are, please tell me why do you functional people talk so much with such a low information density? Is it thinking out loud? Okay. Back to topic. If you are a technical übermensch – like yours truly – [...]
Recently, I was following a discussion on extracting business knowledge from UML models. UML models, UML models, and more UML models. Slowly a thought was emerging from my soaky brain: hey dude, data models are models too. In fact, a data model doesn’t always have to be represented by an ERD diagram. It is also [...]
To be honest with you: I am a Visionist. I really like Microsoft Visio. I do. I use it a lot, but from a functional perspective I use a very narrow portion in respect to different diagrams available. I almost always start with a Flowchart and extend it into something I like. Before I discovered [...]
The most common model is the data model. Deep in the application architecture a physical model can be found, which is a straight representation of the database (ERD diagram).More superficially, in the core of the application architecture, a conceptual representation of the same data model can be found (UML diagram). However, it should be kept [...]
With software architecture my rule of thumb is: less is more. I like lean. Developers – your primary audience – should get a good hunch of the path they must walk, but it should not be written down in such detail that it freezes their thinking organ. Therefore there is no room for micro-managers or [...]
