Home » Eclipse Projects » UOMo » Proposal feedback, interested party
| Proposal feedback, interested party [message #542392] |
Thu, 24 June 2010 17:02  |
 Miles Parker
Messages: 1341
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
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Hi all,
Congratulations on your proposal. A few thoughts..
1. Consider adding the Agent Modeling Project to related projects. As AMP and specifically the Agent Modeling Framework Acore representation are designed to model and simulate real world objects the need for standardized approaches to units of measurement is very clear. We are especially interested in defining model / sub-model level consistent relative measures and time-scales at hierarchical scales. We are interested primarily in representations that are not based on particular implementations (e.g. particular floating point constructs) but instead that rely on notionally "real" units of measurement.
2. Is a meta-model representation (i.e. EMF) contemplated? Such a representation would be very useful, and in fact could supersede or obviate the need for a Java representation per se, though of course support for actual transformations would need to be implemented in Java.
3. Have you considered other projects that might be combined or affiliated within this project? Again, taken with say the STEM project, AMP, etc.. we are all working with common representations that are a) model-based and b) working with real world objects. Perhaps it would be useful to be thinking about common representational schemes that go beyond the scope of units of measure.
cheers,
Miles
AMP Project (Incubation) Lead, Eclipse Modeling Project
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| Re: Proposal feedback, interested party [message #543231 is a reply to message #542796] |
Mon, 28 June 2010 18:29  |
Miles Parker
Messages: 1341
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
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| Grahame Grieve wrote on Sat, 26 June 2010 01:54 | hi Miles
How would EMF be useful? I maintain the existing UCUM code from which UOMo will start, and there's no EMF support now, and I don't know why I'd add it. What are your desired functional outcomes?
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Hi Grahame,
Support for Model level representations would provide a common representational scheme not tied to a specific implementation, i.e. Java. To me the idea of common representation just cries out for such a non target specific level of support. And since Modeling is such a strong component of Eclipse, I think it would be useful for all projects to just consider how they might relate to the modeling approaches. As Werner says, such support would be like a kind of BlahML, except with an EMF representation you have much stronger semantics and can include validation, editing and even code generation to the mix.
So to answer your question directly, I'd like to incorporate a standard approach to units and measures within my own meta-model so that users of my tools can represent UOM in a way that is standardized and dockable with other approaches. The only way to accomplish this would be if there was common support at the model (not-API) level.
At the simplest level, once could provide wrappers around the existing UCUM (?) constructs so it is actually not as involved as it might sound.
hth,
Miles
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| Re: Proposal feedback, interested party [message #543291 is a reply to message #543286] |
Tue, 29 June 2010 00:18 |
Miles Parker
Messages: 1341
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
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| Grahame Grieve wrote on Mon, 28 June 2010 19:57 | The UCUM code consists of a model for the UCUM essence file, a model for the syntax of a unit, and a set of code that provides services to parse strings to the syntax model, and to convert between them.
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And convert between instances of units themselves, I would presume? IOTW, I could have something like Measure(Unit.Fahrenheit, 32.0) and say call ConvertUtil.toMeasure(Unit.Celsius) and get back Measure(Unit.Celius, 0.0)?
| Quote: | I think you're saying that there should be an EMF based model for the syntax because that's useful - though I don't see it myself. It's such a clunky way to do things - you need the services to make it useful.
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I don't understand what you mean by needing services -- it sort of sounds like you're saying "you need to make it useful to make it useful".  But if you're actually saying that the only thing that the UCUM model provides is string parsing then the model doesn't sound that useful.
In any case, I'm not sure that I agree that services are needed to make a representation useful. Especially for measures simply getting people to *specify* one in a consistent and transparent way is half he battle.
| Quote: | But let's assume that we defined a EMF representation of the syntax of a unit. What services would you need provided with that?
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Pretty simple, I think. In the above example, you'd simply want a representation of that such that in my meta-model framework, I could provide an XAttribute meta-class with a Unit attribute. Then a model developer could create an XAttribute instance "meanTemperature" specifying the Unit as the (enum?) "Celsius". Then, suppose someone wanted to dock that with a model using "Fahrenheit" as a unit. The Model representation would then be able to do a proper conversion.
does that make sense?
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| Re: Proposal feedback, interested party [message #566605 is a reply to message #566568] |
Mon, 28 June 2010 18:29 |
Miles Parker
Messages: 1341
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
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Grahame Grieve wrote on Sat, 26 June 2010 01:54
> hi Miles
> How would EMF be useful? I maintain the existing UCUM code from which UOMo will start, and there's no EMF support now, and I don't know why I'd add it. What are your desired functional outcomes?
Hi Grahame,
Support for Model level representations would provide a common representational scheme not tied to a specific implementation, i.e. Java. To me the idea of common representation just cries out for such a non target specific level of support. And since Modeling is such a strong component of Eclipse, I think it would be useful for all projects to just consider how they might relate to the modeling approaches. As Werner says, such support would be like a kind of BlahML, except with an EMF representation you have much stronger semantics and can include validation, editing and even code generation to the mix.
So to answer your question directly, I'd like to incorporate a standard approach to units and measures within my own meta-model so that users of my tools can represent UOM in a way that is standardized and dockable with other approaches. The only way to accomplish this would be if there was common support at the model (not-API) level.
At the simplest level, once could provide wrappers around the existing UCUM (?) constructs so it is actually not as involved as it might sound.
hth,
Miles
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| Re: Proposal feedback, interested party [message #566656 is a reply to message #543286] |
Tue, 29 June 2010 00:18 |
Miles Parker
Messages: 1341
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
|
|
Grahame Grieve wrote on Mon, 28 June 2010 19:57
> The UCUM code consists of a model for the UCUM essence file, a model for the syntax of a unit, and a set of code that provides services to parse strings to the syntax model, and to convert between them.
And convert between instances of units themselves, I would presume? IOTW, I could have something like Measure(Unit.Fahrenheit, 32.0) and say call ConvertUtil.toMeasure(Unit.Celsius) and get back Measure(Unit.Celius, 0.0)?
Quote:
> I think you're saying that there should be an EMF based model for the syntax because that's useful - though I don't see it myself. It's such a clunky way to do things - you need the services to make it useful.
I don't understand what you mean by needing services -- it sort of sounds like you're saying "you need to make it useful to make it useful". :) But if you're actually saying that the only thing that the UCUM model provides is string parsing then the model doesn't sound that useful.
In any case, I'm not sure that I agree that services are needed to make a representation useful. Especially for measures simply getting people to *specify* one in a consistent and transparent way is half he battle.
Quote:
> But let's assume that we defined a EMF representation of the syntax of a unit. What services would you need provided with that?
Pretty simple, I think. In the above example, you'd simply want a representation of that such that in my meta-model framework, I could provide an XAttribute meta-class with a Unit attribute. Then a model developer could create an XAttribute instance "meanTemperature" specifying the Unit as the (enum?) "Celsius". Then, suppose someone wanted to dock that with a model using "Fahrenheit" as a unit. The Model representation would then be able to do a proper conversion.
does that make sense?
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