MetaCase Newsletter 2008v2
July 2008
MetaCase Again Named as Top Influencer in SD Time 100 List
MetaCase has been named to the prestigious SD Times 100 list for the second consecutive year. The annual SD Times 100 award recognizes the year's top 100 influencers in the software development industry. "It was a year that went particularly meta," the judges remarked. "[The winners] made December 2007 a far more productive time to code than January 2007."
MetaCase was selected in the Modeling category for the continuing success of its MetaEdit+® Domain-Specific Modeling (DSM) environment. MetaEdit+ enables companies to significantly increase productivity by building high level models which can automatically generate full code or specifications.
"MetaCase continues to demonstrate leadership in the area of Domain-Specific Modeling, improving developer productivity while helping the industry get the message about the power of DSM," said Alan Zeichick, editorial director, SD Times.
"It is very gratifying to be selected again for this important award," commented Dr. Juha-Pekka Tolvanen, CEO of MetaCase. "The continuing rise in popularity of Domain-Specific Modeling is not only exciting for us as a tool vendor, but thrilling for us as software developers. With MetaEdit+, an increasing number of organizations--from automotive giants to embedded device manufacturers--are radically improving their software development performance, and we're proud to be leading this move forward."
In this issue:
- SD Times 100 List
- OOPSLA spotlight on DSM
- Rental licensing
- CG2008 & software product lines
- From the Forums... Reverse Engineering the Code?
- Coming events
OOPSLA spotlight on DSM
OOPSLA (Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications) is the annual ACM conference focusing on object-oriented related topics. Since the first conference held in 1986 in Portland, Oregon, OOPSLA has remained the most significant event of its type.
At this year's event, to be held in Nashville, TN on 19—23 October, Domain-Specific Modeling will be one of the heavily featured topics. Since 2001, DSM supporters have held a parallel DSM Workshop as a part of OOPSLA, and that will continue again this year. What is new for 2008 is the DSM related topics that will be included in the main OOPSLA conference.
The first is a panel discussion entitled "DSLs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" to be moderated by Dr. Jeff Gray, Associate Professor at the University of Alabama Birmingham. Five other distinguished professionals will compose the rest of the panel, including MetaCase's CEO, Dr. Juha-Pekka Tolvanen. The goal of the panel is to discover the true advantages that DSLs provide and to offer insight into the nature of DSL design, implementation, and application. The panel is expected to attract hundreds of attendees and presents a tremendous opportunity to learn about this topic direct from the experts.
In addition to the workshop and panel, MetaCase executives, Tolvanen and Kelly, will also be presenting a tutorial in the main conference based on the research contained in their recent pioneering book, "Domain-Specific Modeling: Enabling full code generation". The tutorial will introduce the fundamental concepts of DSM and discuss how it differs from code-centric modeling languages, such as UML. The authors will also provide a set of real-life success stories in which companies have achieved radical productivity and quality benefits with DSM.
More information of the OOPLSA DSM Workshop, including submission deadlines and schedule, is available here.
Rental licensing
The plain and simple truth is that organizations have different objectives, policies, and requirements when it comes to software tooling. To help support those various needs we are now offering a rental model option for all MetaEdit+ products in addition to our standard purchase pricing. This rental model is designed for organizations engaged in project-funded development activities and for those which are not looking to commit to a long-term investment in software tooling, but still want to benefit from the radical productivity and quality benefits offered by MetaEdit+. Standard MetaEdit+ licenses are only 250 EUR/month and include full support and maintenance.
More information on MetaEdit+ pricing options is available here.
CG2008 & software product lines
It's by no means a large event on the yearly fair schedule, but the annual Code Generation event, held in Cambridge, UK, this passed week, is cementing itself as a key event for thought leaders in the fields of code generation and model-driven development.
As was the case in 2007, MetaCase was a key supporter of the event with our experts participating in a wide variety of presentations ranging from tutorials and panel discussions to vendor product presentations. More significant, though, was the presence of outside organizations which presented publicly, or discussed privately, their DSM success stories based on their use of MetaEdit+. As might be expected in a conference of this type, participants included academics, tool vendors, software and system architects, analysts, and consultants.
One interesting theme that emerged this year was a focus on the link between MDD and software product lines (e.g. MDD and Software Product Lines - a marriage made in heaven?). This is a trend we at MetaCase have seen growing in strength for several years—and rightly so. DSM is perfectly suited for enabling product line companies to improve productivity and quality. Numerous product line intensive companies, such as Nokia and EADS, have achieved tremendous success using DSM based approaches with MetaEdit+. A new presentation discussing how variability in product lines can be managed with DSM is available here.
With attendance figures up on last year's numbers, and attitudes quite high, you can be confident that Code Generation will return in 2009. If you weren't able to make it this year (sometimes these summer events can make scheduling difficult), be sure and make it next year, and if you were, hope to see you there again in 2009.
More information on Code Generation is available here.
From the Forums... Reverse Engineering the Code?
The MetaEdit+ Web Forums, launched in April of this year, continue to be a great way for MetaEdit+ users to interact with one another and to pose questions of the community and staff moderators. Topics range from the basic installation questions to advanced techniques and practices.
This issue's highlighted topic comes from user 'janne' who discusses the various reverse engineering options available with MetaEdit+.
***
This was asked recently several times so I decided to share it here too:
> Can I use MERL for reverse engineering (code->model)?
There are many ways to import data from external sources, see a summary of the importing scenarios from: www.metacase.com/mwb/model_import.html
In the picture, scenario 6 presents how MetaEdit+ utilizes MERL for importing the data from the external source. This can be described also as a reverse engineering the code back to the model approach.
MetaEdit+ repository contains an example where Java classes (*.java) and their attributes are reverse engineered to UML Class Diagram models.
You can test the reverse engineering functionality in MetaEdit+ by:
- Open “UML examples” project and set it as a default project
- Open “Reverse engineered Java (ex 1)” model
- Place some Java classes (*.java) into the MetaEdit+ 4.5\reports subfolder OR
run a 'Build' generator for '2008Models' (in Digital Watch project), which will
generate the Java files for Digital Watch product family
- Run the “Reverse engineer Java” generator, which will create a MXM file, and
import it to the default project with name “Reverse engineered Java #index
number”
- Open the resulted model and select a Diagram for its representation
All the generator scripts are accessible for every user and they can be modified or extended further to have more complete information for the classes, e.g. having also the Operations or relationships between the classes.
Coming events - see you there!
Meet our experts and see a demonstration of Domain-Specific Modeling with MetaEdit+ at any of the following events:
MiniSpa
2008, 11 July 2008, London, UK
- Domain-Specific Modeling for Full Code Generation (Friday, 11 July) -
more info
Dr Dobb's
Architecture & Design World, 21—24 July 2008, Chicago, IL, USA
- Building DSM Languages with Full Code Generation (Monday, 21 July,
13:30—17:00) -
more info
- Moving from Coding to Model-Driven Development (Tuesday, 22 July, 15:30—17:00)
-
more info
8th Workshop on Domain-Specific Modeling, 19—20 October 2008, Nashville, TN, USA
OOPSLA 2008,
19—23 October 2008, Nashville, TN, USA
- Domain-Specific Modeling for Full Code Generation (Tuesday, 21 October)
- DSLs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Wednesday, 22 October)
A list of past and present events is available here.
If your schedule does not allow you to meet us at any of these events, please feel free to contact me directly to arrange a visit with a representative in your area or for an online demonstration. Additionally, please visit our download page for a FREE 31-day evaluation of the world's leading DSM tool, MetaEdit+.
Yours sincerely,
James L. Hammond
Sales and Marketing Director, MetaCase
+358 14 4451 408
james.hammond@metacase.com
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