Beyond ORM

[Chris Pettingill]

I posted this a few days ago in microsoft.public.visio but I didn't get any
reponses, so I thought I'd try here. (Hopefully I've waited long enough
that this doesn't count as cross-posting):

I've used Visio on and off in the past to try and diagram my software, and
create some database models. I've installed Visual Studio .NET (from MSDN
Universal) along with Visio for Enterprise Architects 2003 beta. I was
hoping Visio
would help me get my head around designing a proper .NET project. I've gone
through the docs I could find on ORM modelling, and I think I've got a basic
grasp of that and how it will help me build a database. Next I'll need to
develop the data access code/business layer for my application. I would
hope that Visio can somehow come up with some decent UML and corresponding
..NET code from my ORM model. Can it? Will a future version do this? Or,
am I on my own to model then code things manually once I've got my database
designed in Visio? If there's any online docs on this, please pass on the
links.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Scot A. Becker]

Hi Chris,

For what it is worth, I responded in that group, but here it is again:

Right now, there is no automated mechanism for porting ORM to UML in Visio.
I have heard some folks were generating C# classes directly from an ORM
model, but I haven't seen it released yet. I wrote a utility (free, URL
below) that exports the ORM metadata into XML.From there, you code write
some XSLT to get it into some other format such as class definitions, XMI to
import into compatible UML tools, etc.

If you haven't seen them already, www.orm.net has some articles on ORM vs.
UML which you could use as a basis for manually making UML models from ORM.
From there, Visio will generate the application skeleton.

Hope that helps,
Scot.
................................................
Scot Becker

Orthogonal Software
www.orthogonalsoftware.com

 

[Chris Pettingill]

I'll look into this stuff. I haven't done any work with XSLT or XMI yet,
but it looks like I'm gong to have to start! I hope MS does build this into
Visio/Visual Studio. Ideally, if I changed my ORM, I wouldn't have to
recode my application for a brand new skeleton, but I guess for now that's
the only option.

Thanks,
Chris