Status of BON?

[Ian Joyner]

I just saw a question on Quora “Is there a better object notation than UML?”

I found the Wikipedia entry is quite weak and just dismisses BON as “didn’t have commercial success like UML”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Object_Notation

I think ‘Better’ is a better word than ‘Business’ which makes it sound like it is for COBOL programmers.

Ian

[Bertrand Meyer]

Dear Ian,

 

Well, the two prime movers (Kim Waldén and Jean-Marc Nerson) have moved on to other pursuits (Kim retired several years ago). As a matter of fact there is nothing much to develop – as far as I am concerned the notation is fine as it is.

 

I think Kim is the one who thought that “business” would carry more weight with managers than “better” and avoid sounding aggressive. But I agree that “better” is probably better.

 

Anyone can edit Wikipedia… Also, contribute docs, blog articles etc.

 

With best regards,

 

-- Bertrand Meyer

Latest book: Handbook of Requirements and Business Analysis, Springer, 2022

A treatise and textbook on requirements, see https://se.ethz.ch/requirements

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[rfo amalasoft.com]

I use BON, or rather a very slightly customized variant every chance I get because otherwise my brain explodes.  I have encountered too many developers who don't use any notation, or documentation, or proper comments, or ... Ah well.

Here's a "paper" that describes most of BON very briefly, along with the very minor additions I use.

R

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From: eiffel...@googlegroups.com <eiffel...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Bertrand Meyer <Bertran...@inf.ethz.ch>
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2024 6:50 AM
To: eiffel...@googlegroups.com <eiffel...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: me...@inf.ethz.ch <me...@inf.ethz.ch>
Subject: RE: [eiffel-users] Status of BON?

 

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[Ian Joyner]

Dear Bertrand,

Thanks for the update. I’m glad to see BON is still active. I was not thinking of updates — it looks pretty good for what it is.

I think most people know UML is on the nose now, and perhaps the time for BON.

As for ‘Business', I think that is too specific and something more generic like ‘Better’ is better. It is the technical people who decide to use this stuff, not managers, so I think ‘Business’ is a mistake and misleading, since BON is more widely applicable.

But that goes for Eiffel as well — it has always been the technical people who picked it up because we saw the advantages, which managers did not understand. The backlash against C++ is happening, especially from younger programmers.

Ian

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[Paul Cohen]

Hi,

As Bertrand wrote, Kim has retired, but he stil keeps the BON method site up:

http://www.bon-method.com

But he does not do any active maintenance or updates to that site. The
full book "Seamless Object-Oriented Software Architecture - Analysis
and Design of Reliable Systems" by Kim Waldén and Jean-Marc Nerson can
be downloaded there.

I would answer the question “Is there a better object notation than
UML?” with "Yes, many". Then again UML is an amalgamation of lots of
different notational conventions for different purposes such as timing
diagrams, state machines etc. Some of those notations are decent and
not completely useless. But for OO-modelling or conceptual modelling
of data to be used for designing software, UML sucks. BON is levels
above UML.

One drawback with BON is the lack of tools that have support or plugin
support for it. And that is closely related to another drawback, it is
not widely used.

But BON is really bon! It's in the name.

/Paul

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[Paul Cohen]

Hi,

Ian wrote:
> I think ‘Better’ is a better word than ‘Business’ which makes it sound like it is for COBOL programmers.

Great suggestion.The "business" word was heavily used in the late 90s
and early 00s in the term "business software", and that was the reason
- I think - it was used in BON. I completely agree that in this day
and age when software really is eating the world in all domains, not
only the business world, just interpreting the B as Better is a great
suggestion.

BON - Better Object Notation.

/Paul

[Ulrich Windl]

Why not "Best"?😉

[Ian Joyner]

Hello Paul,

I agree there are a few good things in UML. David Harel’s Statecharts are an example. But these preceded UML. I first came across them in around 1988 when there was an article in CACM, and I thought that was what we needed on the music publishing software I was doing (in Object Pascal, just before I found out about Eiffel).

Richard Mitchell and others were doing DbC for UML (I can’t remember what they called it now, semantic constraints or something). However, I did not hear good things about it.

What I really think sucks about UML is the + before features, and the awful use of ‘()’ to break uniform access. Then the details in class diagrams.

Yes, perhaps BON needs support in other tools. But that is also a problem with Eiffel — not separate compilers that plug into things like Xcode or other environments.

Ian

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[Ian Joyner]

Hello Paul,

Yes, I think BON need support for other tools.

I agree UML had some good things like David Harel’s statecharts that were around before UML, and I first saw in 1988 in CACM. Richard Mitchell and others were also working on DbC for UML (can’t remember what it was called now). But I did not hear good reports about it.

Ian

> On 14 Jun 2024, at 19:45, Paul Cohen <pa...@seibostudios.se> wrote:
>

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eiffel-users/CAA1Y72GV3gg%2BWDTYSU%3DVOw%3D2epGkYr9%3D6LTMi7qnOi8AZE5tNA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Ian Joyner]

Ulrich just suggested ‘best’. I was just thinking the same!

Or something else beginning with ‘B’:

Bertrand’s, Bruce, Babylon, Bach…

Ian

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[Alejandro Garcia]

The UML addition for DbC. 

Is called OCL.

 (Object Constraint Language)

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