Alternative Design
Representations: Graphs, Text, or Table
Runs on any platform with Java 1.1
Argo/UML is coded entirely in Java
and uses the Java Foundation Classes. This allows Argo/UML to run on virtually
any platform.
Argo/UML is intended for use with:
JDK 1.1 and Sun's Swing 1.1.1 beta 2
and IBM's XML4J 2.0.6
or
JDK 1.2 and
IBM's XML4J 2.0.6
Argo/UML has been tested in the
following environments:
Windows NT 4.0 SP3. Symantec Visual
Cafe 2.1 and 2.5.
Windows NT 4.0 SP3. Sun JDK 1.1.5.
Sun Solaris 5.5.1. Sun JDK 1.1.5.
Linux with Blackdown JDK.
Argo/UML represents designs using a
Java version of the UML 1.1 meta-model as described in the UML Semantics
specification. We have made extensive efforts to keep this meta-model
implementation true to the standard. For more information, see the uci.uml home
page.
The following diagram types are
supported:
Class diagrams
State machine diagrams (near future)
Use case diagrams (near future)
Other diagram types will be
available in the future
Design critics are simple agents
that continuously execute in a background thread of control. They analyze the
design as the designer is working and suggest possible improvements. These
suggestions range from indications of syntax errors, to reminders to return to
parts of the design that need finishing, to style guidelines, to the advice of
expert designers. Many critics offer to automatically improve the design.
Critics are controlled so that their suggestions are relavent and timely to the
design task at hand, bsed on information in Argo's user model. Critics never
interrupt the designer, instead they post thier suggestions to the designer's
"to do" list.
Corrective Automations (partially
implemented)
Critics identify specific problems
in the design and may offer specific solutions in the form of wizards or other
corrective automations. These automations allow design improvements to be made
faster and more reliably than they could be done by hand. Also, designers need
not recall how to use the tool to achieve the suggested change.
All criticisms and their resolutions
are recorded in a design history for later review. In the future, Argo will
also record design changes and
the causal relationships between
changes and criticism being produced or withdrawn.
One difficulty designers face is
keeping track of all the myrid details of thier task. It is all to easy to skip
a step in the design process, leave part of the design unspecified, of make a
mistake that requires revision. Argo provides the designer with a "to
do" list user interface that presents action items in an organized form.
These items can be suggestions from critics, reminders to finish steps in the
process model, or personal notes entered by the designer. The choice control at
the top of the "to do" list pane allow the designer to organize items
in different ways: by priority, by decision supported, by offending design
element, etc. Items are shown under all applicable headings. The "to do" list may
also be viewed as a flat list.
Many design tools and IDEs
(integrated development environments) use project files to contain all the
elements of the system beind designe or built. Argo, like most tools, provide a
tree widget to allow the designer to access the various parts of the project.
Unlike other tools, Argo gives the designer a much richer set of alternative
tree-structured views of the project, and provides a language for designers to
customize those perspectives or add new ones.
Diagrams are the main way of
presenting object-oriented designs. Argo can also provide tabular presentations
of the design and textual presentations in the form of source code, and
(future) english language explanations. Argo allows (future) editing in any of
these presentations, and all of them are kept consistent.
Argo/UML tool is very simple to use.
Argo/UML graphic interface permits
to edit, in text mode, properties and operation directly on desktop with big
save time.
Argo/UML permits the package
organization of project and each package is stored in different files, but the package files can’t to be
exchanged from different designers so they can’t work at different part of
project and exchange theirs work.
At present, Argo/UML permits the
package organization of project but the classes can to be added at only one
package, the first created.
Personally, I tested Argo/UML on
SUSE 6.3 Linux and Windows 98 with JDK 1.2 and I found that it is stable until
there are few classes. When the number of classes in the diagrams reaches the
10 units, Argo/UML becomes
very instable end runs slowly. The problem can partially to be solved by
frequent rescue operation but these requires much time; with 200 MMX pentium
processor, 80 MB of RAM and 10 classes in the diagram, the time required of
‘save’ operation is about 5 seconds !!!
I think that Argo/UML is a very
interesting tool but at the state of art is not usable for serious project; I
believe is a good thing to follow his developement.