UML to Code Generators

A long time ago I came across tools that generate code through UML diagrams. Using such tools, you design the software using a computing tool with drag and drop features. Once you are done with the visual design, you could generate the corresponding code using clicks of a few buttons. I was wondering what is the state of the art right now.

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JUnit Resources

Students can have weird demands. They can ask you to teach them things that you’d never ever heard of before. This time I was asked by a crazy bunch to tell them something about JUnit. So I am gathering some resources here that you might find useful. By the way, JUnit is a Java framework that you can use to unit test your software, primarily written in Java. To this end, you can whether methods of a class or object work as they are supposed to according to the specifications. Here you go with the resources:

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Of Frameworks and Libraries

I was delivering a lecture on design patterns the other day. A student inquired whether design patterns were libraries. I had to spare some time to explain that this wasn’t the case. A library is a compiled code (of an application) that you can use in any program. By using I mean that you can call its objects, their functions, and properties in another program. This is a great utility of libraries. Consider that you have created an application that has a lot of functions to compute simple mathematical formulae. These could be anything like addition, multiplication, logarithmic, exponential or sinusoidal functions. One thing you can do is to compile it to create an executable program. The other thing you can do is to compile it to create a library. An example of the former is any executable program that a compiler creates. An example of the latter is a “jar” file created using the java compiler. Jar is an acronym for java archive(s). It is called an archive because it is a library that contains a compiled version of your application (your mathematics library).

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