[erlang-questions] UML or other modeling tools

[Alain O'Dea]

On 2011-01-10, at 5:35, Ulf Wiger <ulf.wiger@REDACTED> wrote:

> 
> On 9 Jan 2011, at 22:30, Alain O'Dea wrote:
> 
>> On 2011-01-09, at 10:36, Ulf Wiger <ulf.wiger@REDACTED> wrote:
>> 
>>> - The FMC (http://fmc-modeling.org/) notation seems to complement 
>>> Erlang fairly well, describing roughly the things that are most interesting
>>> to describe visually in an Erlang program.
>> 
>> Hi Ulf:
>> 
>> What success stories can you share about using FMC?
> 
> None, actually. It would be interesting to hear from someone who's 
> actually tried it. :)
> 
> The most ambitious story around FMC is The Apache Modelling Project
> 
> http://www.fmc-modeling.org/download/projects/apache/the_apache_modelling_project.pdf
> 
> as far as I know.
> 
> Last time I looked at it, the state of FMC-capable editors was a bit
> troubling. MS Visio supposedly supports FMC notation, as well as 
> OpenOffice. Oryx is an Open Source project and an online editor,
> but it failed to convert me, at least.
> 
> http://bpt.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/Oryx/FMC
> 
> BR,
> Ulf W
> 
> Ulf Wiger, CTO, Erlang Solutions, Ltd.
> http://erlang-solutions.com

FMC looks easy enough to draw.  One key for a modeling system for me is the ease with which it can be drawn on a flip-chart or whiteboard.

Tools that understand the semantics are less important to me. I imagine that OmniGraffle/Visio would work reasonably since they support the magnets and connectors elements needed to make the editing comfortable.  A more purposed editor would be interesting, but in my experience they limit the expression and annotation too much to be generally useful.