Re: New Shapeset -- What Will I Need To Do...?

[Tim Ellis <Tim Ellis gamet com>]

On Thu, 29 Aug 2002 20:39:56 -0700
Andrew S Halper <ashalper acm org> wrote:

> Descriptions of ER representations in UML reference books are amusing:  
> "If you need to represent x in your ER diagram, use a tagged value.", 
> which always seems to the engineer in me like:  "We know the UML is too 
> general to unambigously represent your actual RDBMS data structures, so 
> here's a clumsy work-around."

Heh. And the UML shapeset is, for ERD representation, exactly that.
tedia2sql makes up its own stupid conventions (hey, I'm the author, I can
call it stupid if I want):

Want your attribute to be a member of the primary key? Make it a "private"
attribute. Want the class to be a view, not a table? Check the "abstract"
box. Want an index on the table? Put an operation on the table, and make
its "type" be index.

But UML & ERD aren't a complete intersection either. Yeh, an ERD shapeset
is sorely needed. It's on my TODO list.

-- 
Tim Ellis
Senior Database Architect
Gamet, Inc.