Re: (FC-Devel) core design + project steps

[Jason Elliot Robbins <jrobbins@cadet.ics.uci.edu>]

Hello Freecasers,

  I have been reading the recent discusssion, although I must have
missed the definition of concept graphs so I will have to look back.


>> I have run argo and it looks very nice as a beginning, although it takes
>> a lot of memory and CPU, I assume because java is an interpreter.
>
>I think, the swing lib is the problem. I have run into memory swapping
>on a 64 MB Linux...


I am surprized that you would have a lot of swapping with 64 meg, but
in general I know what you mean.  Also starup time is rather long.
One thing I did on my 64meg PC laptop was to install a 12 meg ram disk
and place classes.zip and swing.jar there.  Startup time is reduced by
about 10 seconds.  Another issue is that Argo/UML takes a lot of
screen space, you really need at least 1024x768.

I have decided for myself to basically ignore both of these issues.
My feeling is that Argo/UML is about a year or two away from really
widespread use, and by 2000, people will have more memory and better
monitors.  Already 64meg and a 17-inch monitor is pretty standard for
developers.  I hate bloatware, but I notice it a lot less than I did 2
years ago, and I project that in another 2 years everyone will have
128 meg and developers will have 256.

Anyway, I am not trying to argue that it should not be important to
you.  I am just explaining why I choose that platform.


>> But the question is what is the add-on of this project. If we want to do
>> UML tool I think that a better way would be to join the argo project and
>> not to split forces.
>
>I agree.

I certainly welcome that.
 
>> - use GEF (the graph editor framework from uci) to implement conceptual
>> graphs.
>
>For practical reasons.

Even if you don't use Argo/UML, I agree that GEF should be useful.
However, GEF v0.6b1 also uses Swing.

>I see argo/UML more as a viewer, but I need a closer look. The code
>should
>be generated in the CG part.


Does "CG" here refer to concept graph or a code generation component?

One feature found in recent tools (like Structureuilder and
Together/J) that I also put in Argo/UML, is the ability to easily see
the code that would be generated for each class.  This requires good
UI integration and some speed.

What are the gode generation needs that are important to you?


As I said above, I have to look back at old email to get a better idea
of what concept graphs are.  Are they similar to the UML meta-model?
Right now, there is a very strong separation between the model and the
diagrams and all code generation in Argo/UML is done based on the
model.

>I will have to buy some more memory for my Linux system... I is not a 
>principal, only a practical problem... If we could decide to use pure
>Java, we can save all above the JVM. If we decide to use C++, we need
>some
>viewing code.
>
>What do the others think about the problem?

Before I switched to Java I was using Smalltalk and C++.  But I found
it very hard to get people to adopt the programs I built.  No one can
run a Smalltalk program without first getting a smalltalk system,
which was out of the questions for many people, even in 1994.  Giving
someone a C++ program requires that you have a precompiled version for
their system or that they can compile the source.  Not to many people
look forward to compiling someone elses c++ code because of the
differences between compilers and operating systems.  Then came Java.
Argo/UML has been downloaded over 1000 times, and my understanding is
that almost everyone is able to run it on the first try.

jason!