(English) MDE shuffled again

Tags:

MDA (Model-Driven Architecture), MDD (Model-Driven Develoment), MDE (Model-driven engineering)

Désolé, cet article est seulement disponible en Anglais Américain.

Hugues Van Eylen

Hi, Vincent,
I’m always a little bit embarrassed when, in computer science, we talk about modeling as a good practise or an activity of her own. For me, programming, writing requirements with Word and PowerPoint and of course drawing UML diagrams are Modeling. MDA and MDE seems to consider Modeling as an activity which can help to construct programs. But, to be efficient, MDA and MDE need that people knows how to model. And drawing an UML Diagram doesn’t mean to me that people know how to model. Modeling is an intellectual activity which can be enhance by good cognitive practise. This is the first requirement for MDA and MDE to become one day a useful technology. This is perhaps because people doesn’t understand what is really modeling that successful appliance of MDA is hard and that finally interest in it seems to decrease.
vhanniet

Bonjour Hugues!
I agree that modeling is hard, and programming too. And that modeling is a bit hardest as we can’t touch something material in the end, so proper feed-back isn’t easy to get. However, we should focus on how to leverage MDE to something usable by more people and have in mind that it never will be accessible to everyone. See also http://bit.ly/WCWlIl.
Rui Curado

“MDD is usually a blurred copy of “The” MDA.”

I disagree. MDD is not a copy of MDA. MDA, just like EMF (Eclipse), GOPPR (Metaedit+), ABSE (AtomWeaver) and other are all forms of MDD. All of them have a meta-metamodel, that is, instructions on “how to model” for that particular approach. So, my opinion is that MDA is at the same level as other modeling approaches.
vhanniet

Hi Rui,
My intent was to make a difference between a theorical model-driven development and practical ones. So I distinguish MDA, which is a standard specification without reference implementation, from MDD practices like working with a DSL, or an UML profile, and some code generators.
In comparison, MOF is a standard but EMF is an implementation standard: that’s not the same usability degree. In this case there are also MOF implementations, usually non public, embedded in modeling tools. But EMF, as a standard, is kinf od an instance of MOF (with some extras).
However, we could probably say that MDD solutions are instances of the MDA approach (I change the text of my post this way). Do we agree?
- Rui Curado
  
  Vincent, I still think MDA and others have taken different ways. For instance, the PIM/PSM paradigm of MDA is not reflected on any other approach that I know of.
vhanniet

Rui, I think it’s only a matter of viewpoint.
For instance (as stated by Ed Seidewitz, somewhere!), nothing in the MDA spec tells that PSM has to be an UML profiled model. As code can be seen as a model, we could see code generators used in MDD approaches as PSM!
And the fact that the “PIM level” model used in all MDD practices, should it be a DSL, has better to be independent of the detailed coded implementation, say the version of a framework library, is substantially a matter of SW life-cycle good practises. Some MDD solutions I know doesn’t comply to this practice: they can be used for one shot work but aren’t sustainable.
So, I just say that MDA is a standard (there is a spec) general direction, not to be taken word for word (even if it can be), and that MDD practices, which work well but unfortunately encounter growing resistance from software craftsmen (skilled developers), may be seen as pragmatic derived forms of MDA.
Speaking of a way level: from above in the sky the way is to capture requirements in models and to use these models as input to get code in an automated way. On solid ground, for sure, there are many detailed ways to achieve this goal…
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(English) MDE shuffled again

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