RE: XMI reality check

["Kanaskie, Kurt A (Kurt)" <kkanaskie@lucent.com>]

All,

I have had some experience with XMI (Unisys's plug in for Rational and IBM's
XMI toolkit). I agree XMI is ugly but it was intended for machine to machine
exchange of models, not human readability. I have found IBM's version to be
more complete that Unisys's for what I was trying to do. IBM's toolkit was
also better at preserving the model graphics when imported.

I successfully used XSLT on the XMI from a UML model, based on Booch's
meta-model for XML Schema, to generate a human readable XML DTD. This
approach is being finalized by OAG as their method of generating DTDs from a
UML model of all of their BODs (170+). Thus I believe that XMI can be used
to generate XML instances of business processes modeled in UML. However,
this approach will require some consistency changes to the UML version of
the Spec Schema.

Another benefit of XMI is to generate meta-model instance DTDs that can be
used to check model instance UML models. The stock tools to generate these
DTDs are also quite ugly and not human friendly, but serve the purpose. 

Regards,
________________________________________________________________
Kurt Kanaskie
Lucent Technologies
kkanaskie@lucent.com
(610) 712-3096

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Jim Clark [mailto:jdc-icot@lcc.net] 
Sent:	Saturday, March 17, 2001 12:38 PM
To:	Welsh, David
Cc:	Race Bannon; 'Bob Haugen'; 'ebXML-BP@llists.ebxml.org';
'ebXML-CCBP-Analysis (E-mail)'
Subject:	Re: XMI reality check

 << File: Card for Jim Clark >> Yes. One could generate a DTD or XML
document or XMLschema from a model stored
as RDF.

Jim

"Welsh, David" wrote:

> I've heard very good longer term experience story's about using RDF from
the
> publishing/library world, and I couldn't miss the almost religious sermons
> from some @ the W3C on RDF as the way of the future Semantic Web.
> It would appear RDF offers the opportunity to encapsulate business process
> models, during the analysis, design and 'record for posterity' stage in
> business process life cycles. I take it then in the grander scheme of
things
> then, one could generate SpecSchema runtime XML from business process
models
> in RDF. Sounds like it could.
> Dave
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jim Clark [mailto:jdc-icot@lcc.net]
> > Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 7:29 AM
> > To: Race Bannon
> > Cc: 'Bob Haugen'; 'ebXML-BP@llists.ebxml.org'; 'ebXML-CCBP-Analysis
> > (E-mail)'
> > Subject: Re: XMI reality check
> >
> >
> > I FULLY concur with Mr Bannon and vote for that format.
> >
> > Jim Clark
> > e2open
> > 936.264.3366
> >
> > Race Bannon wrote:
> >
> > > My vote:  RDF is the better format.
> > >
> > > Race Bannon, Ph.D.
> > > Director of Training and Documentation
> > > Information Architects
> > > 4064 Colony Road
> > > Charlotte, NC  28211
> > > Ph: 704/367-2105
> > > Fx: 704/442-0693
> > > Toll Free:  877/INFOARC x. 2105
> > > iA:  http://www.ia.com
> > > iA Education:  http://www.ia.com/ia/training/index.htm
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Bob Haugen [mailto:linkage@interaccess.com]
> > > Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 8:46 AM
> > > To: 'ebXML-BP@llists.ebxml.org'; 'ebXML-CCBP-Analysis (E-mail)'
> > > Subject: XMI reality check
> > >
> > > One of the issues for the Business Process Editor has been
> > > what format to use to store business process models for
> > > interoperability with UML tools.  I am also encountering
> > > this same issue in other projects.
> > >
> > > XMI seems to be the "standard", but I have also heard
> > > lots of complaints.
> > >
> > > This is a general call for feedback on XMI, from people
> > > who have tried it:
> > > * What UML tools have you tried XMI with?
> > > * Have you tried to take the same XMI model and
> > >   move it from one tool to another?
> > > * What problems did you encounter?
> > > * Were XMI models imported into a UML tool
> > >    really ugly, even if they might have worked
> > >    technically?
> > > * Any other XMI comments...
> > > * What's a better format, if any?  (RDF?)
> > >
> > > Thanks a million,
> > > Bob Haugen
> > >
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