Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ covers topics that are not well covered in other parts of the documentation. The items are not yet in any particular order.

Pronounce Xholon as if there is no X at the beginning, exactly the same as the word holon.

No. As of version 0.3 there is not yet a stable API. Xholon is still in an early stage of development. As of yet there is no guarantee that an application developed for version 0.n will work on version 0.n+1, without some modifications. Having said that, there are no plans to make major changes to the API.

I started the Xholon project for several reasons, mostly frustration. I had co-authored several research papers that describe software that only runs on a proprietary and expensive commercial product, Rational Rose RealTime (RRT), that is not readily available to readers of those papers. I wanted to continue my research using an open-source tool, but none was available that offers the full functionality I need. I originally used RRT because I used to work for the companies (ObjecTime and Rational) that produced it, because I used it extensively, and because it offers an approach to software development that mirrors my own style. As of version 0.3, Xholon incorporates the functionality found in UML 2.0, ROOM, ObjecTime Developer, and Rational Rose RealTime, that I consider essential to produce dynamic event-driven systems. That is, I have been able to reproduce the work reported in the published papers, and I have been able to produce many additional sample applications from a wide variety of domains that I am interested in and that are representative of event-driven and simulation systems, using Xholon.

A holon is an entity that is neither a whole nor a part, but both at the same time. There's a description of this essentially philosophical concept here.

I am using sample applications from a wide range of domains to drive the development effort. New Xholon functionality is typically added by creating a new application, abstracting any new requirements, and adding these to the framework so that they can be used by other applications, often in a completely different domain. The goal is to have a common framework that can support a wide range of event-driven systems.