MetaCase Newsletter 2010/1
January 2010
76 cases of MDD that works: IASA E-Summit recording available
Why do many MDD approaches fail or only produce marginal improvements, when others consistently improve productivity by a factor of 5-10?
MetaCase analyzed 76 cases of Domain-Specific Modeling, spanning 15 years and 4 continents, to find the set of worst practices that reduced productivity and endangered project success. CTO Steven Kelly presented and discussed the results at IASA's (International Association of Software Architects) webinar on Domain-Specific Modeling.
IASA has made the video recording available along with the transcript from the Q&A session. Even UML stalwarts and standards fans couldn't fail to be convinced by the mass of evidence assembled!
In this issue:
- 76 cases of MDD that works: IASA Webinar recording available
- DoD Software Tech on Model-Driven Development: Industry experiences on adopting DSM
- Tutorials on DSM
- From the forums: Deleting instances
- Webinars on creating Domain-Specific Modeling languages with MetaEdit+
- Upcoming events
Industry experiences on adopting DSM
The best approach for building DSLs is incremental. Build a little of the language, model a little, make some changes to the language, model some more, etc. This iterative process minimizes risks, allows early testing, and smoothes the path of organizational change: moving from coding to modeling. An MDD special issue of the US Department of Defense's Software Tech News discusses how to adopt DSM, backing it up with experiences from various industries: automotive, consumer electronics, medical, military and telecom.
Access the full article at DoD Software Tech site.
DSM tutorials this autumn
Domain-Specific Languages and Model-Driven Development have moved from scattered successes, through industry hype, to increasingly widespread practical use. The main questions are no longer what or why, but where and how. MetaCase provides tutorials teaching how DSM can best be used, where to apply it, how to create domain-specific modeling languages and code generators, and how to integrate generated code with legacy or manually-written code.
Tutorials, varying in length from a couple of hours to half a day, are given at:
- OOP, Munich, Germany, 25 January
- MoSiS Seminar, Espoo, Finland, 15 March
- ACCU, Oxford, UK, 13 April
In addition to public tutorials MetaCase also provides on-site training for creating and using Domain-Specific Modeling languages and generators. A 2 day program is customized to fit the individual company needs.
From the forums: Deleting instances from Repository
When you have a question, the MetaEdit+ Web Forums have proven to be a great way to get accurate answers quickly. At the same time, your question helps others for the future: some threads have been read over 1000 times in the last year. Topics range from beginner questions to advanced techniques and practices - and you always get answers, often from the MetaEdit+ developers themselves!
This issue's highlighted topic comes from Javi who asks about deleting instances from the MetaEdit+ repository.
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A new instance is created and later deleted from a graph in MetaEdit.
After deleting, this instance could be still selected as an existing instance.
How can I completely kill instances in a project?
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You can't! Killing is bad. ;-)
In the object-oriented world, there's no such operation as "kill". All you can do is remove links to an object. During that session, you'll still be able to resurrect the object, either from the Type Browser or by searching by type in the Component Selection Tool. If you don't 'resurrect' it by linking to it again from another object, it will disappear when you end your session.
Occasionally you might want to explicitly get rid of such an object, e.g. if the object type defines that its name property is globally unique, you won't be able to create another object with the same name. The obvious thing to do then is simply to resurrect the old object of that name, but if you don't want to do that you can edit the old object and give it an empty name (or prefix XXX to its name), allowing you to use the same name in a new object.
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See other topics from the MetaEdit+ Web Forum here.
Free Webinars: Domain-Specific Modeling with MetaEdit+
The 30 minute webinar will demonstrate how MetaEdit+ allows you to incrementally define your own modeling tool - without having to write a single line of code. As soon as you define a modeling language, or even a partial prototype, you and your team can start to use it in MetaEdit+. You will learn:
- How to define domain-specific languages with MetaEdit+
- How to define rich dynamically changing notations
- How MetaEdit+ updates models on the fly as the modeling language changes
- How to test and debug the modeling language and generator
For the webinar you can use your computer's microphone and speakers - a headset is recommended. The schedule for the webinars and instructions are available on the webinar page.
Alongside the webinars, we're also offering company-specific webmeetings for DSM. These allow us to focus on your particular vertical, e.g. automotive, product line, UI, telecom or service specification. We can show you and your team DSM languages and cases from your vertical as well as discussing your company-specific requirements - all of course with no obligation. Book your own free one-to-one webmeeting now!
Upcoming events - see you there!
Meet our experts and see a demonstration of Domain-Specific Modeling with MetaEdit+ at any of the following events:
OOP 2010, 25-29 January, Munich, Germany
MoSiS seminar, 15 March, Helsinki, Finland
ACCU 2010, 14-17 April, Oxford, UK
Code Generation 2010, 16-18 June, Cambridge, UK
Contact information
MetaCase International · Ylistonmaentie 31 · FI-40500 Jyvaskyla · Finland
MetaCase USA · 5605 North MacArthur Blvd. · 11th Floor · Irving, TX 75038