Burton Group, Cutter Consortium & IDC Analysts Agree: DSM is a Big Step Forward

With an increasing amount of successful implementations in industry, Domain-Specific Modeling (DSM) is raising a lot of interest on developer conferences and in the media. Now also the big analyst firms catch on to agree that model-driven development works best if modeling languages and generators fit to the the domain:

Burton Group 

"The use of domain-specific languages and custom meta models is the greatest aid to productivity and making model-driven development a viable practice. Unfortunately, most vendors ship general-purpose UML modeling tools that are not easily customized to reflect domain-specific notations and constructs."

From: Model-Driven Development: Rethinking the Development Process by Chris Haddad, 12 Jul 2004

Cutter Consortium

"The advantage of a DSL is that by letting designers focus on higher-level abstractions that are specific to the domain, we can be more productive than with a general-purpose modeling language. Furthermore, experts in the domain incorporate their knowledge into the DSL abstractions so that each designer does not have to figure them out for themselves. Domain-specific modeling takes DSLs a step further to provide a modeling framework that implements, supports, and automates the DSL."

From: Cutter Consortium's Enterprise Architecture Advisory Service by Mike Rosen, 13 Sep 2006

Gartner

"Development organizations will increasingly use a mixture of modeling notations, and continue to need generic notations. However, they should also leverage the benefits of domain-specific languages when opportunities arise."

From: View DSLs and UML as 'Fraternal Twins,' Not Competitors by David Norton, 29 Sep 2006

IDC

"…our expectation is that MDD [Model-Driven Development] tools should grow to be application infrastructure [domain] aware." "Newer tools are using more abstract methodologies, an approach that is able to reduce complexity, decrease risk of failure, and help automate the process of creating more secure, scalable, robust, and sophisticated applications in less time and with less effort." "Today, most modeling tools are blind to capabilities and services rendered by [domains]. Given the increasing role that these [domains] play in application development and operation, it is imperative for modeling tools to recognize these environments and provide out-of-the-box support for their services and architectural constructs."

From: IDC Worldwide Model-Driven Development Software 2005 - 2009 Forecast by Stephen D. Hendrick

Full reports can be obtained upon request at the respective analyst firms.