On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, Tim Bunce wrote:
> > A very complete UML tool in Java is ArgoUML:
> >
> > http://argouml.tigris.org/
>
> Umm, it might be interesting for someone to add a Perl code generator
> for it...
I've played with the idea of adding Perl code-generation to my design
tools (Visio2000 and ObjectDomain). One question that comes up
immediately: what code should be generated for class files? There's no
single standard way to layout a Perl class beyond the obvious "h2xs"
format. In particular there are numerous ways to declare attributes and
methods.
An awful lot of what makes a code generator usefull for languages like C++
and Java doesn't apply to Perl. We don't have to manage disjoint sets of
declarations (header files / interface files) and implementation files
(class files). We already have a flexible and simple documentation format
- adding a POD interface to a UML tool would be cute but hardly a huge
time saver.
I enjoy working with visual UML tools but I'm unconvinced that Perl code
generation would be of much practical use. Do you have ideas for
functionality that I haven't considered?
-sam
