[Announce] AADL Workshop

[Jean-Pierre Rosen]

AADL (Architecture Analysis & Design Language) is a language for systems
analysis which is of interest to everyone involved in systems design. It
shares many principles with Ada.

A workshop is being organized Oct. 17-18 in Massy, near Paris, France.
For more information, including preliminary agenda, please go to
http://www.axlog.fr/R_d/aadl/workshop2005_en.html
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J-P. Rosen (ro...@adalog.fr)
Visit Adalog's web site at http://www.adalog.fr

[Marco]

"A first stable version of the AADL standard, version 1.0, has been
issued in November 2004. It does not contain annexes. "

Is the standard freely available ? The website seems to be down
since July 21st.

Does it incorporate standard symbology such as UML/SDL or does it
create a whole new set of boxes and arrows?

[Jean-Pierre Rosen]

Marco a écrit :

> "A first stable version of the AADL standard, version 1.0, has been
> issued in November 2004. It does not contain annexes. "
>
> Is the standard freely available ? The website seems to be down
> since July 21st.

The AADL standard is not free. It can be purchased for $59 on the SAE
web site:
http://www.sae.org/servlets/productDetail?PROD_TYP=STD&PROD_CD=AS5506

> Does it incorporate standard symbology such as UML/SDL or does it
> create a whole new set of boxes and arrows?

The core AADL standard only deals with the textual description. A
graphical annex is about to be standardized. This annex define a new
standard symbology to represent the AADL concepts.

[Marco]

(still off topic) How does this compare with SysML ? Is it really
necessary to create yet another System level design language? Wouldn't
these folks be better off trying to influence SysML which is currently
being defined. Since OMG standards are freely available they will
probably have more impact, right or wrong IMHO and be more widely
adopted.

I much prefer to read a book that uses a standard to document a design
method. I guess I will wait and spend my money on that.

[Jean-Pierre Rosen]

Marco a écrit :

> (still off topic) How does this compare with SysML ?

SysML is an extension to UML to try and accomodate systems. AADL is a
textual language, intended right from the start for system design. A
feature-by- feature comparison would be too long for this thread...

> Is it really
> necessary to create yet another System level design language?

This is a good question that should be directed to the SysML people.
AADL evolved from MetaH, which was in use in avionics systems long
before the SysML effort started. AADL is a registered standard *today*,
while SysML is still in the early phases.

> Wouldn't
> these folks be better off trying to influence SysML which is currently
> being defined.

There is also a UML profile that will achieve standardization soon. We
would have loved to have the OMG people participate, rather than
starting their own effort from scratch.

> Since OMG standards are freely available they will
> probably have more impact, right or wrong IMHO and be more widely
> adopted.

I industry makes technical decisions based on the selling price of a
standard... then I'm afraid of the future of industry!

Moreover, free availability of the standard is not the most important
thing. AADL *today* has a free Eclipse plug-in (OSATE), emacs mode, free
tutorials, etc. See http://www.aadl.info.