Issue 9230: choice of terminolgy for TransitionKind is non-intuitive (uml2-rtf) Source: (, ) Nature: Revision Severity: Significant Summary: The choice of terminolgy for TransitionKind is non-intuitive for many of us, and therefore leads to misuse. Specifically, one would expect the antonym pair "Internal" and "External" be applied to a conceptual pair such as "Exits the composite state" and "Does not exit the composite state". Instead the terms "External" and "Local" refer to these behaviors, respectively. Further, the term "Internal" is then used to describe a concept that has nothing to do with state transitions, but rather, is a reaction to a trigger. It appears to us that the transition and reaction concepts were generalized based on their members (trigger, guard, effect) and not on their behavior. We have found this approach to be a bad practice. Behavioral generalization is more intuitive, and therefore more appropriate. We suggest the following changes: "Internal implies that the transition, if triggered, will not exit the composite (source) state, but it will apply to any state within the composite state, and these will be exited and entered." "External implies that the transition, if triggered, will exit the composite (source) state." Move what is currently described as an "Internal Transition" to a separate concept named "Reaction". Resolution: Revised Text: Actions taken: December 8, 2005: received issue Discussion: End of Annotations:===== m: webmaster@omg.org Date: 08 Dec 2005 11:33:30 -0500 To: Subject: Issue/Bug Report -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Mark Uebel Company: Parata Systems mailFrom: muebel@parata.com Notification: Yes Specification: UML2.0 Superstructure Definition Section: 15.3.16 FormalNumber: ptc-03-08-02 Version: 2.0 RevisionDate: 03/08/02 Page: 506 Nature: Revision Severity: Significant HTTP User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322) Description The choice of terminolgy for TransitionKind is non-intuitive for many of us, and therefore leads to misuse. Specifically, one would expect the antonym pair "Internal" and "External" be applied to a conceptual pair such as "Exits the composite state" and "Does not exit the composite state". Instead the terms "External" and "Local" refer to these behaviors, respectively. Further, the term "Internal" is then used to describe a concept that has nothing to do with state transitions, but rather, is a reaction to a trigger. It appears to us that the transition and reaction concepts were generalized based on their members (trigger, guard, effect) and not on their behavior. We have found this approach to be a bad practice. Behavioral generalization is more intuitive, and therefore more appropriate. We suggest the following changes: "Internal implies that the transition, if triggered, will not exit the composite (source) state, but it will apply to any state within the composite state, and these will be exited and entered." "External implies that the transition, if triggered, will exit the composite (source) state." Move what is currently described as an "Internal Transition" to a separate concept named "Reaction". Regards, Mark Uebel