11 Oct
2012
11 Oct
'12
9:49 a.m.
Thank you, Doru, for this insightful explanations. I was always
wondering what the relationship between Mondrian and Roassal is. So
it is not that Roassal is just the successor of Mondrian. Both have
their fields of applications in their own right....
--Hannes
On 10/11/12, Tudor Girba <tudor(a)tudorgirba.com> wrote:
Hi,
There were several posts that intrigued me lately related to the
difference between Mondrian and Roassal, and I did not know exactly
why. Now, I think the reason stems from the conceptual difference
between the two. So, here I go :)
- Roassal is a basic engine that provides a DOM-like graph object
model. Its main goal is to enable one to build and manipulate visual
objects.
- Mondrian is a high level transformation engine. Its main goal is to
enable one to transform an arbitrary subject model into a graph
visualization.
Of course, Mondrian had a basic engine, too, inside, but it was not as
flexible as Roassal (especially in the animation part). However, the
main point of Mondrian was really to support the transformation.
It is for this reason that all blocks in the Mondrian API take the
subject model as an input. The target is the developer that knows his
model and almost nothing about Mondrian (except for the simple
transformation predicates). This was a conscious decision, not a
mistake. It is clear that you miss flexibility (e.g., you cannot
manipulate the node within an action block), but you gain simplicity
for basic actions.
Another choice in Mondrian was to focus on the graph model. It is
again clear that this decision excluded some classes of
visualizations, and as a result several visualizations misused the
high-level transformation engine for low level object placing. An
example of this is the DSM. It is precisely in this area (and of
course others that were not charted yet) that Roassal can play a very
important role.
I think both points of view are important, and it would be cool to
look for solutions that marry both (1) the transformation engine level
that speaks mostly the "language" of the original objects, and (2) the
graphical engine that offers basic blocks for visual manipulation.
Cheers,
Doru
--
www.tudorgirba.com
"Every thing has its own flow"
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