(FC-Devel) [Re: Concept Oriented Design ] + results of tool evaluation

[Danny Werner <danny@vrijdag.xs4all.nl>]

Hi Chen, hi Thomas, hi all!

This message is just to let you know that your audience is still
there. I like your discussion. I just did not get into it earlier
because of the mixed feelings I have towards expanding the
project scope.

But you both asked :-)

Though I feel that LOP (logic oriented programming a.k.a. prolog,
PROgramming in LOGic) is a far richer and more elegant approach
than OOP, I doubt that it will attract enough fans to make it
the way of thinking of a distributed development team just yet. 
To expand: OOP (OOAD, OOSE) is IMHO nothing more than the synthesis
of on the one hand 
	very classic module design principles of 
		- as tight as possible - cohesion and 
		- as loose as possible - coupling, 
and on the other hand 
	personification of these modules (actors 
	with identity, properties and responsabilities).

A PC-like softwareBUS such as CORBA is the icing on that cake.
All (just) means to aid _structuring_ large piles of code, easily
modelled in prolog (Why is there OCL? Why is prolog part of some
CASE-tools? I think it is closer to the _substance_ of
problem solving.)

Nevertheless, when Jeff announced full UML-support in FreeCASE,
I thought this was quite ambitious. So I am reluctant to reach even
further at this time. OTOH, I enjoy reading both your arguments and 
I really like the conceptual graphs. E.g.

        http://diamant-atm.vsb.cs.uni-frankfurt.de/~mico/  or 
        http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/~mico/

I'm happy that you are keeping the discussion alive and interesting,
despite our managerial crisis.

Just my 2 cents.

BTW I noticed some ambiguity in the use of the word "process":
1. The layout of activities in the development of software
(as opposed to the modeling language).
2. The execution of (part of a) program.

2 and a half cents?


Have fun,
				Danny