PCM Self-Study Introduction and Exercises
This page supports self-study to learn the PCM. You can use it to become familiar with the Palladio tool, the PCM bench. Exercises allow you to apply the theoretically learned content.
The goal of this training is, that you solve the Groupware exercise (below). It is up to you how to reach this goal. You do not have to use all material here. If you manage to solve the Groupware exercise, that is enough.
You find different types of material here: Slides with background information on the PCM, the PCM tools itself, screencasts that show some activities in the PCM tool as movies, an introductory exercise, a detailed CBIS exercise and the named Groupware exercise.
During the training, ask your advisor or contact person if you have any problems or questions. Do not hesitate to ask if you cannot get on. The exercises were originally composed for a lab session in which participants could ask the staff all the time.
Slides
- Basics on Components
- PCM Introduction and Repositories
- PCM SEFF (important, as not covered by introductory exercise) (Page 20 is incorrect: the main thread doesnt wait!)
- The slides show the single modelling elements in a SEFF, but not a complete example. With this elements, you can model the behaviour of a component as a control flow graph of actions. For example, if you want to model a service of a component that first calculates something, then calls another component, and then again does calculations with the results, you create a SEFF with three actions in a sequence: One InternalAction for the first calculation, one ExternalCallAction for calling the other component, and another InternalAction for the second calculation. StartAction and StopAction mark the start and end of the sequence (so actually you have five actions at the end).
- PCM Parameter (important, as not covered by introductory exercise)
- Hands on: How to use parameters in the tool: Media:PCM Variable Usages.pdf
- PCM Software Architect und System Deployer
- PCM Domain Expert and Result Interpretation (important, as not covered by introductory exercise)
PCM Tool
If you plan to contribute to the PCM or use the PCM in tooling you will create later, e.g. as part of a Praktikum or thesis work, please use the PCM nightly build version (unless your advisor recommended another version).
If you cannot install the nightly build version, please let your advisor know and continue working with the latest PCM stable release. Make sure to get the appropriate Eclipse base installation.
Open only one diagram at a time. Before editing another one, save and close the current one. Thus, you make sure that the different diagrams do not overwrite changes from other diagrams.
Screencasts
Screencasts are available on a separate site Palladio-Bench Screencasts
HowTos
- Datei:PCM-DataTypes.pdf An explanation of how to create your own custom data types in the PCM (required for the CBIS and Groupware exercises)
Introductory Exercise (if you have never used the tool before)
This small exercise explains step-by-step how to create a model and where to click. If you have not used the PCM tools yet, this is the right thing to start with.
CBIS Exercise (optional)
The CBIS (Component Based Information System) is an extensive exercise. You do not have to model all scenarios, but you may want to have a look at it and try it if you are not sure how all of this works. For example, start with the createCustomer use case and model and simulate all what is needed for it. We will help you with any question on this task.
Groupware Exercise (Goal)
The goal of the trainig is to be able to solve this exercise. If you look at the exercise description and have no idea what to do, please go back to the CBIS example, because we can help you more with that one. You need to solve the Groupware exercise quite independently to make this training effective. Of course, you may ask any question. We will at least point you to where to find that information. :)
Internal information
The sources of the exercises can be found in the Lehre SVN at lehre/SDQ-Lerngruppe/PCM Self Study Exercises. Example models for the Groupware exercise can be found at lehre/SS07_Praktikum_Software-Entwurf/07_%C3%9Cbung_PCM_komplett/Uebung%207b.