[Koha-devel] RFC 3.2: Autogeneration of Koha UML diagrams

[Marc Chantreux]

Hello,

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 11:24:28AM +0200, Zeno Tajoli wrote:
> Starting from perl scripts avaible from internet we want to develop a 
> script that read Koha API (C4 dir) and write a .xmi file
> with an UML rappresentation of classes, methods and usage of methods.

Just some thoughts:

- Objects that exists in the koha code comes from low level libraries
  used by koha and are just arguments to the functions of the koha API
  which uses a procedural paradigm.
- there is no strong separation of the model (as the M in MVC pattern)
  in the API. so i see no easy way to parse the code to obtain a clean
  vision of the data structures.
- even the schema isn't 3NF so you can't automatically distinguish every
  objects while parsing it.

So if i were your student, i would be a little bit nervous:
- the work is very hard
- the result would be 

A better work could be:

- read the code
- propose a class model to implement with
  - strong M/C separation
  - a business abstraction
  - propose fixes on the schema to respect the goals fixed (for example:
    be 3NF compliant)

> We also write complete E-R diagrams for Koha DB and a specific 
> document for every table

always for myself:

i think this is a very important think! i also think that it would be
great to patch the sql file which creates the schema to use the
'description' keyword on every table and column!

i was really desapointed the first time i typed 

    describe tablename;

into mysql to find help. schema description can help (not only new
koha contributors, i guess). 

For the both jobs: i think there is no way to expect a parser to get the
job done.

regards

-- 
Marc Chantreux
BibLibre, expert en logiciels libres pour l'info-doc
http://biblibre.com