Re: ANN: Golden Roof AGX Sprint

Reinout van Rees wrote:
> The new agx will be able to generate all sorts of things. zope3 code.
> The existing plone+archetypes code. Plain python code.

It would be great if it also had a mode to generate whitespace normalized
XMI XML suitable for diff and repository checkin.

There are lots of projects checking in UML models in binary compressed
zuml to the collective and other repositories now. The use of UML models
is undoubtedly a good thing, but the use of binary model files less so.

I think it would be better for collaboration and code review to have agx
output two normalized XMI files, and (by convention) check *those* into
the repositories:

- plain-text XMI representation of the full-fidelity model output by the
tool of choice (i.e. Poseidon 3.1 CE today, someday Gaphor, Umbrello,
etc.), but strictly normalized for whitespace, element and attribute
sorting, etc.

- plain-text XMI reduced to only the elements and attributes that the agx
tool cared about during parsing*. This is the logical model with no
diagram- or tool-specific formatting elements or attributes. Being 'lossy'
(but still 100% agx functional), these are remarkably small by comparison,
and excellent for diffing to keep informed on model changes. Also would
need the normalized whitespace, element and attribute sorting.


* In effect, each release of agx have would have an 'interface'
specification, the set of XMI elements and attributes that have any effect
at all on code generation. This would be useful for generated
documentation of the agx tool, special TGV's and things of that nature.



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