Thread
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Case tool
Kaare Rasmussen <kar@webline.dk> — 1999-06-17T07:29:07Z
Someone posted this link to a Case tool: http://www.ccas.ru/~gurov/ftp/Editors/CASE/Vinsent/ Unfortunately it's in Russian, which I know nothing about, and it doesn't seem to have been worked upon since 1997. I don't know the strength of this tool, as I can't understand the description, but can this be the best OSS-contender with no work being done for two years?
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Re: [HACKERS] Case tool
Oleg Bartunov <oleg@sai.msu.su> — 1999-06-17T07:43:55Z
I have contacted with author and it says he just don't have time and he'd like to pass development to somebody. As I understand most thing works ok but needs to be synchronized with new version of TCL/TK, postgres and python. I didn't see any free CASE TOOL like Vinsent which supports postgres. Regards, Oleg On Thu, 17 Jun 1999, Kaare Rasmussen wrote: > Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 09:29:07 +0200 > From: Kaare Rasmussen <kar@webline.dk> > To: pgsql-hackers@hub.org > Subject: [HACKERS] Case tool > > Someone posted this link to a Case tool: > http://www.ccas.ru/~gurov/ftp/Editors/CASE/Vinsent/ > > Unfortunately it's in Russian, which I know nothing about, and it > doesn't seem to have been worked upon since 1997. > > I don't know the strength of this tool, as I can't understand the > description, but can this be the best OSS-contender with no work being > done for two years? > > _____________________________________________________________ Oleg Bartunov, sci.researcher, hostmaster of AstroNet, Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University (Russia) Internet: oleg@sai.msu.su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/ phone: +007(095)939-16-83, +007(095)939-23-83
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Re: [HACKERS] Case tool
Gene Sokolov <hook@aktrad.ru> — 1999-06-17T07:51:13Z
From: Kaare Rasmussen <kar@webline.dk> > Someone posted this link to a Case tool: > http://www.ccas.ru/~gurov/ftp/Editors/CASE/Vinsent/ > > Unfortunately it's in Russian, which I know nothing about, and it > doesn't seem to have been worked upon since 1997. > > I don't know the strength of this tool, as I can't understand the > description, but can this be the best OSS-contender with no work being > done for two years? ******* Translation begin *********** The current version allows for: 1 draw tables. including - restoring previous state - copying to the local application buffer - pasting from the buffer - editing the table field types - and also some more stuff 2 link fields (constraints) - FOREIGN KEY |--> PRIMARY KEY 3 generate SQL file from the given structure - for Postgres95 (w/out constrains) - for Informix ( with constraints) 4 there is a request broker using protocol independent of DB 1 for Informix (tested with HP-UX and Informix 7.20) 2 for PostgreSQL 5 generates a visual DB repsentation from a DB. (except references (takes time)) Plans: 3 create new DBs through the broker and fill them with tables 4 alter existing tables through broker 5 generate GCI script according to the struture 6 ctreate additional SQL generators for other DBMS 7 fix the interface send all requests & complaints to: mailto:denn@unicorn.micex.ru /nop abuse please (literally "please don't spit")/ ******** translation end *********** Please no questions to me and no "curtesy copies".
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Re: [HACKERS] Case tool
Ross J. Reedstrom <reedstrm@wallace.ece.rice.edu> — 1999-06-17T16:14:55Z
On Thu, Jun 17, 1999 at 09:29:07AM +0200, Kaare Rasmussen wrote: > Someone posted this link to a Case tool: > http://www.ccas.ru/~gurov/ftp/Editors/CASE/Vinsent/ > > Unfortunately it's in Russian, which I know nothing about, and it > doesn't seem to have been worked upon since 1997. > > I don't know the strength of this tool, as I can't understand the > description, but can this be the best OSS-contender with no work being > done for two years? I've spent time looking for such tools in the Free Software community on and off over the last couple of years. I agree that there's a gap in what's available. Sometimes, I think the problem is that, although there's a number of academic projects working on the general problem of graph layout, they all seem to want to commercialize their code, rather than contribute it to the community. A consequence, I think, of how expensive good commercial CASE tools are: makes it easier to imagine turning your pet project into some money, I suppose. Perhaps a deeper reason seems to be the suspicion among hacker types that CASE isn't all it's cracked up to be. Heck, there's no OSS graphical IDE for software development, but that hasn't stopped the development of some pretty large projects (the Linux kernel and PostgreSQL as two examples.) A public CVS repository, text editor of your choice, and command line compilation tools (e.g. gcc driven by make) seem to be all the developers need to get the work done. CASE diagraming tools seem to be more critical for generating pretty pictures for management. That's been true for me, so I added simple schema diagramming to the pgaccess tool. This allows me to document the relationships in an existing DB, rather than the other way around. (Hmm, that reminds me, did I send that last version off to Constantin? I better check) I will admit that the diagramming has also eased collaborating with co-developers at remote sites. So, I see it as filling part of the documentation problem, rather than the design problem. Now, it seems that your experience has been that DB CASE is critical for large DB projects. Perhaps these types of projects scale differently the code development projects I mentioned above. If so, the free software community hasn't had the chance to fill that niche yet: heck, it's only been the last 12 to 18 months that PostgreSQL has matured enough in the eyes of many to tackle really big DB implementations. I haven't had the opportunity to use commercial CASE tools (or commercial DB,s for that matter!) What benefits do you see in using them? It seems you're incredulous that anyone could maintain a DB with more than 60 tables without them. Why? It seems to me that maintainability of any complex system comes from a well factored underlying design, rather than from complex maintenance tools. I'd really like to hear your take on this, but I'm pretty sure the HACKERS mailing list is the wrong one for this discussion. Ah, I think the INTERFACES list looks about right. (I've posted there, and CCed you on this mail, since I'm not sure your subscribed there) Ross -- Ross J. Reedstrom, Ph.D., <reedstrm@rice.edu> NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer Computer and Information Technology Institute Rice University, 6100 S. Main St., Houston, TX 77005
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Re: [INTERFACES] Re: [HACKERS] Case tool
Oleg Bartunov <oleg@sai.msu.su> — 1999-06-17T16:37:10Z
On Thu, 17 Jun 1999, Ross J. Reedstrom wrote: > Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 11:14:55 -0500 > From: "Ross J. Reedstrom" <reedstrm@wallace.ece.rice.edu> > To: pgsql-interfaces@hub.org > Cc: Kaare Rasmussen <kar@webline.dk> > Subject: [INTERFACES] Re: [HACKERS] Case tool > > On Thu, Jun 17, 1999 at 09:29:07AM +0200, Kaare Rasmussen wrote: > > Someone posted this link to a Case tool: > > http://www.ccas.ru/~gurov/ftp/Editors/CASE/Vinsent/ > > > > Unfortunately it's in Russian, which I know nothing about, and it > > doesn't seem to have been worked upon since 1997. > > > > I don't know the strength of this tool, as I can't understand the > > description, but can this be the best OSS-contender with no work being > > done for two years? > > > I've spent time looking for such tools in the Free Software community > on and off over the last couple of years. I agree that there's a gap in > what's available. > > Sometimes, I think the problem is that, although there's a number of > academic projects working on the general problem of graph layout, they all > seem to want to commercialize their code, rather than contribute it to > the community. A consequence, I think, of how expensive good commercial > CASE tools are: makes it easier to imagine turning your pet project into > some money, I suppose. > > Perhaps a deeper reason seems to be the suspicion among hacker types that > CASE isn't all it's cracked up to be. Heck, there's no OSS graphical > IDE for software development, but that hasn't stopped the development > of some pretty large projects (the Linux kernel and PostgreSQL as two > examples.) A public CVS repository, text editor of your choice, and > command line compilation tools (e.g. gcc driven by make) seem to be all > the developers need to get the work done. CASE diagraming tools seem to > be more critical for generating pretty pictures for management. That's > been true for me, so I added simple schema diagramming to the pgaccess > tool. This allows me to document the relationships in an existing DB, > rather than the other way around. (Hmm, that reminds me, did I send that > last version off to Constantin? I better check) I will admit that the > diagramming has also eased collaborating with co-developers at remote > sites. So, I see it as filling part of the documentation problem, rather > than the design problem. Yes, documentation is one reason I'm using CASE tool like ERwin, but reverse/forward engineering is also useful feature. It's very important if you're doing join project with many developers involved. I found that it is possible to configure Erwin to work with PostgreSQL and it really helps me. It would be nice to see Vinsent integrated into pgaccess. But this is a big project - python,tcl/tk programers require. As I said author of Vinsent is looking for somebody continue his project. > > Now, it seems that your experience has been that DB CASE is critical for > large DB projects. Perhaps these types of projects scale differently the > code development projects I mentioned above. If so, the free software > community hasn't had the chance to fill that niche yet: heck, it's only > been the last 12 to 18 months that PostgreSQL has matured enough in the > eyes of many to tackle really big DB implementations. > > I haven't had the opportunity to use commercial CASE tools (or commercial > DB,s for that matter!) What benefits do you see in using them? It seems > you're incredulous that anyone could maintain a DB with more than 60 > tables without them. Why? It seems to me that maintainability of any > complex system comes from a well factored underlying design, rather > than from complex maintenance tools. I'd really like to hear your take > on this, but I'm pretty sure the HACKERS mailing list is the wrong one > for this discussion. Ah, I think the INTERFACES list looks about right. > (I've posted there, and CCed you on this mail, since I'm not sure your > subscribed there) > > Ross > -- > Ross J. Reedstrom, Ph.D., <reedstrm@rice.edu> > NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer > Computer and Information Technology Institute > Rice University, 6100 S. Main St., Houston, TX 77005 > _____________________________________________________________ Oleg Bartunov, sci.researcher, hostmaster of AstroNet, Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University (Russia) Internet: oleg@sai.msu.su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/ phone: +007(095)939-16-83, +007(095)939-23-83
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Off topic-graph layout tools (was Re: [INTERFACES] Re: [HACKERS] Case tool)
Bruce Stephens <bruce@cenderis.demon.co.uk> — 1999-06-17T19:19:26Z
"Ross J. Reedstrom" <reedstrm@wallace.ece.rice.edu> writes: > Sometimes, I think the problem is that, although there's a number of > academic projects working on the general problem of graph layout, > they all seem to want to commercialize their code, rather than > contribute it to the community. A consequence, I think, of how > expensive good commercial CASE tools are: makes it easier to imagine > turning your pet project into some money, I suppose. For graph layout, there's vcg, which is GPL (but the algorithms themselves are obfuscated, which sort of reduces its value). AT&T have published pretty detailed descriptions of the algorithms they use in dot and whatever the other ones are called. You can download papers on this from their web site. Someone sufficiently interested ought to be able to knock something sane up fairly quickly, I'd have thought. I think it would be a great thing to have---I'd be willing to put some effort into it. I got email from Stephen North (one of the authors) in November saying he was asking for permission to release graphviz as open source, which would be amazingly cool---I could imagine graphical tools sweeping the Linux and *BSD worlds. Obviously, that hasn't happened. Maybe it would be worth prodding him, just to see if there's any chance?