With Model-based development based on domain-specific modeling languages getting more interest from businesses, I have noticed several times now that teams blindly decide to build their own DSM tool using freely available frameworks, like the one offered by Eclipse, only to realize a few weeks (or months) later that the effort this requires is more than they initially hoped for.
There are many facets involved with building your own MDD tool like providing the ability to define your own modeling languages and generators, defining and associating the visual representation to the defined language, defining tool behavior, providing the means to immediatley test your languages and generators while defining them simultaneously, sharing your languages, generators and models with others, possibly even on hetrogeneous platforms, providing integration with other development tools, supporting different DSM languages at the same time etc. Building your own DSM tool does not end with your first version of it.
It's highly unlikely for one that developers will get their first DSM language right the first time, or that this will be a good DSM language. Furthermore, it is very likely that even a good DSM language will need to change over time, which will have its effects on the models that have been created with it. Normally, defining a DSM mechanism requires developers to concentrate on both language definition and generator definition simultaneously. If those developers also need to concentrate on making sure there is reliable tool support for their continuously changing definitions, the effort becomes very complex, very time consuming and very costly.
In order to make DSM a success, developers need to put the goals of business before the pleasure and challenge of building their own DSM tool from scratch....which is what it comes down to, really, when using free frameworks.
At MetaCase, our vision is that developers should be allowed to focus on building good DSM languages and generators, where the environment helps them in doing so by making the effort convenient and transparent. Developers should not be bothered with the intricacies of creating tool support for their own languages and generators, a good environment automatically provides the tool support for them. Not just for the "using them" part, but also for the "defining them", "sharing them", "maintaining them" and "integrating them" parts.
You don't want to spend man-years in developing a tool that in the end will make you a lot faster just until it inevitably becomes obvious that you need to make a change to the language, generator or tool...........and you can start all over again. This may be nice for people that like to build stuff, just for the fun of building stuff, it completely offsets the benefits the DSM approach has for the business goals.
Thankfully, some people have realized this in time, before having wasted precious time on building from scratch:
“Modeling with MetaEdit+ was indeed quite convenient and a lot easier to accomplish than trying to achieve the same results with Eclipse GMF,”
Ulf Hesselbarth, SIEMENS Communications.
"MetaEdit+ provides convenient tool support for domain (meta-)modeling as well as for the definition of concrete instance data, which is simplified by a domain-specific graphical user interface. Easy to learn — easy to use!"
Cord Giese, Research Analyst, Delta Software Technology.
"MetaEdit+ is the most sophisticated DSM tool,"
Scott Ambler, Ambysoft
"Even as a beginner with MetaEdit+, I could define a domain-specific activity language in about six hours - design, testing and one failed trial included,"
Laurent Safa from Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd., Japan.
"MetaEdit+ was the most flexible tool, allowed us to define our own design syntax quickly, and make fast experiments while developing the method,"
David Narraway from Nokia.
There are many facets involved with building your own MDD tool like providing the ability to define your own modeling languages and generators, defining and associating the visual representation to the defined language, defining tool behavior, providing the means to immediatley test your languages and generators while defining them simultaneously, sharing your languages, generators and models with others, possibly even on hetrogeneous platforms, providing integration with other development tools, supporting different DSM languages at the same time etc. Building your own DSM tool does not end with your first version of it.
It's highly unlikely for one that developers will get their first DSM language right the first time, or that this will be a good DSM language. Furthermore, it is very likely that even a good DSM language will need to change over time, which will have its effects on the models that have been created with it. Normally, defining a DSM mechanism requires developers to concentrate on both language definition and generator definition simultaneously. If those developers also need to concentrate on making sure there is reliable tool support for their continuously changing definitions, the effort becomes very complex, very time consuming and very costly.
In order to make DSM a success, developers need to put the goals of business before the pleasure and challenge of building their own DSM tool from scratch....which is what it comes down to, really, when using free frameworks.
At MetaCase, our vision is that developers should be allowed to focus on building good DSM languages and generators, where the environment helps them in doing so by making the effort convenient and transparent. Developers should not be bothered with the intricacies of creating tool support for their own languages and generators, a good environment automatically provides the tool support for them. Not just for the "using them" part, but also for the "defining them", "sharing them", "maintaining them" and "integrating them" parts.
You don't want to spend man-years in developing a tool that in the end will make you a lot faster just until it inevitably becomes obvious that you need to make a change to the language, generator or tool...........and you can start all over again. This may be nice for people that like to build stuff, just for the fun of building stuff, it completely offsets the benefits the DSM approach has for the business goals.
Thankfully, some people have realized this in time, before having wasted precious time on building from scratch:
“Modeling with MetaEdit+ was indeed quite convenient and a lot easier to accomplish than trying to achieve the same results with Eclipse GMF,”
Ulf Hesselbarth, SIEMENS Communications.
"MetaEdit+ provides convenient tool support for domain (meta-)modeling as well as for the definition of concrete instance data, which is simplified by a domain-specific graphical user interface. Easy to learn — easy to use!"
Cord Giese, Research Analyst, Delta Software Technology.
"MetaEdit+ is the most sophisticated DSM tool,"
Scott Ambler, Ambysoft
"Even as a beginner with MetaEdit+, I could define a domain-specific activity language in about six hours - design, testing and one failed trial included,"
Laurent Safa from Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd., Japan.
"MetaEdit+ was the most flexible tool, allowed us to define our own design syntax quickly, and make fast experiments while developing the method,"
David Narraway from Nokia.
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