DSM Focus on Code Generation Event

Code Generation 2007 promises to have a significant focus on domain-specific modeling for model-driven development. With Microsoft and MetaCase already signed up as sponsors, I believe we can be quite sure of this.

The event organizers have managed to get some influential speakers in the area of MDD: Axel Uhl from SAP, Markus Völter, Steven Kelly (MetaCase), Andrew Watson (OMG) and of course the people from the Microsoft DSL team.

If I understand correctly, the program promises to give attendees a valuable learning experience with a rich mixture of sessions from 75 minutes up to well over 3 hours.

Free training on creating DSM languages

At the coming OOP 2007 conference in lively Munich, expo and conference attendees have free access to all vendor tracks. MetaCase will provide one that teaches participants "hands-on" how to build a domain-specific modeling language and how to obtain tool support for it. Our aim is to provide participants with something a bit more valuable: Leaving the class room after 90 minutes feeling you've really learned some skills, instead of being made aware of a bunch of product features.

People should bring their own machine, and may opt to bring their own DSM tool. For those that wish to use MetaEdit+ we'll provide them with a copy. From a skills perspective, it's irrelevant what DSM tool you use really. Whether its Eclipse GMF, DOME, GME, Microsoft Visual Studio DSL's, MetaEdit+ or any other tool that can support DSM languages, they're all welcome to the session!

MetaCase offers a free ticket, you can get it here. It also provides entrance to all keynotes, product sessions, special training, vendor tracks and the expo.

New Event: Code Generation 2007

Mark Dalgarno, editor of codegeneration.net pointed me to a new conference, Code Generation 2007 on, well, code generation that his company is organizing in May 2007 in Cambridge UK.
The conference is currently seeking people and companies that are interested in running a session and/or sponsoring the event.

With very few (to my knowledge at least) events on code generation in the UK, this seems like an excellent opportunity for many companies to get exposure.

MDD & Product Lines Conference review

Markus Völter, one of Germany's most respected consultants in the area of software engineering and software technology, also founder of Software Engineering Radio posted some comments about the recently held Model-Driven Development and Product Lines Conference in Leipzig, that I blogged about earlier.

He comments about using MetaEdit+ being a great tool for building modeling languages and his wish to use MetaEdit+ as a front-end to Open Architecture Ware (oAW) generators. This is something that one of our contacts is actually working on right now, his comments were that "currently the process of assembling a working and useful editor with GMF is quite painful and time consuming. It's just not feasible for larger models." and that “Modeling with MetaEdit+ was indeed quite convenient and a lot easier to accomplish than trying to achieve the same results with Eclipse GMF.”

MetaEdit+ already provides the ability to plug oAW into it, via the model and meta-model import/export facility in XML format, which oAW accepts. Alternatively, there is also the SOAP/Web Services-based API that MetaEdit+ provides. There should thus be nothing stopping Markus from using MetaEdit+ more intensively :)

DSM @ DevWeek 2007 in the UK

Juha-Pekka has been invited to speak about defining domain-specific modeling languages and generators at DevWeek 2007, the UK's biggest conference for developers. On Thursday, March 1, JP will "demystify DSM, open the lid on OMG's MDA and shine a light on Microsoft's Software Factories".

Besides showing why UML-based MDA is generally a bad idea (do notice that not a single session in the whole conference deals with UML-based MDA anymore....hmmm maybe JP should just leave the lid where it is and focus on stuff that works), he will discuss the steps developers can take toward defining their own modeling languages - those that suit the work to be done better and therefore making them more effective - and generators, making sure that whatever it is the generator spits out, is what they want it to spit out.

From a guy with over 15 years of experience in this field, you can expect the session to be enlightning, well worth a visit.

Conference: MDD and Product Lines

The end of the year usually sees a lot of top-quality conferences, like SD Best Practices, OOPSLA, Elektronik and many more. I would like to point also to one, which really gets to the point when it comes to model-driven development. It's got a long name:

Model-Driven Development and Product Lines: Synergies and Experiences

It will be held in Germany, the city of Leipzig on October 19 and 20 and hosts some big names like Markus Völter, Steve Cook (will he demo MS's new DSL tools?) and our own Juha-Pekka Tolvanen (will he demo the all new MetaEdit+ 4.5?)

Furthermore I see that Carsten Bock from Porsche will discuss how making automotive software in fast cars is done even faster with DSM.

With a conference fee of 150 euros for two days of model-driven fun, including food, it's definitely worth the effort.

SD Wild West Panel

Well, it's been a while but after a long holiday, during the dryest summer of the century here in Finland, I'm back behind my keyboard.

Currently at MetaCase we're working hard toward the release of the new MetaEdit+, which will be awesome. I had some time to go through old emails, stumbled on the panel script of SD West 2006 and my wooden shoe broke (old Dutch saying). In the annoucement to the panel I am sure the SD events group had announced "some heat" that could be expected. However, the script I read does not give any indication of "heat". Instead, it seems like the panelists were given ear plugs and asked to react to issues that were barely related to each other.

The best advice to attendees clearly came from Compuware's John Kern who wanted to point out that it matters who you hire for a software development project. I bet it does John, but don't you think that "Just hire the smart ones and you don't have to worry about getting them there" is simplifying it just a little too much? Comments like that should get you barred from any future panel if you ask me.

Jack Greenfield mentions that he does not believe in big red buttons that generate code he has to live with from high-level models. Well Jack, first, in MetaEdit+ that button is not big and not red, it's actually quite small and blue/whitish and people have been using it for over 13 years to generate full code that they can live with, and yes, from high-level models.

Scott Ambler reacts (according to the script) out of the blue that not everyone gets modeling. Correct Scott. Could it be that this is because UML, the most used modeling language - hyped since its inception by the OMG in every magazine, website and conference - is actually very complex? Would modeling not be simpler if developers can design with the concepts and rules that they are most familiar with - those from their problem domain - while the language makes sure that they follow the architecture and design rules that are valid in their problem domain?

Hopefully the next panel on MDD provides some real fireworks, cause there is enough reason to. A good moderator might help, one who doesn't let panelists get away with half answers or John-Kernisms.

Software im Automobil 2006

I participated the annual "Software im Automobil" conference in wonderful Stuttgart last week. Naturally, the issue of autosar had a lot of emphasis in many of the talks. The automotive industry is fighting with complexity issues: Not only is the software getting more and more complex in functionality, it also has to be implemented in an environment that is influenced by many environmental and political issues, that is distributed, needs to be able to be updated, is hardware-expensive, has to run on hardware from different suppliers AND is often developed by different suppliers. The standard, low-level architecture and runtime that autosar envisions will no doubt be a big step toward more control over the spiralling costs involved with software and hardware development in this sector.

Next to autosar, I was surprised to see domain-specific modeling as the next-hottest topic during the conference. A growing number of players in this area start to understand that they cannot build the software or software product lines the build with standard, off-the-shelf development tools and languages like UML or C. UML lacks the preciseness they need and C or similar languages simply are the wrong tool: No one really wants to write 10 million lines of code manually and maintain them on that level. A raise in abstraction, where possible, is a logical next step and this is what DSM provides. In doing so, DSM will provide a proven solution to exactly those issues the automotive sector is struggling with.

Back from OOP 2006

Just back from OOP in a snowy Munich. Like last year, the quality of the event clearly defines it as the leading European conference on software development in general. Attendance was great, people nice, you could really see people were enjoying it. A lot of big names among the speakers like Markus Völter, Scott Ambler, Juha-Pekka Tolvanen and Krzysztof Czarnecki. I did wonder about the people from Microsoft but I guess Jack Greenfield, Steve Cook and Alan Cameron Wills are too busy with getting version 1.0 of the DSL tools ready for release. Bummer guys, you missed an interesting event and great opportunity to provide some more info about the current state of affairs inside your labs.

It struck me that no one is really questioning the use of DSL's anymore - apart from the usual one guy who misses the point about abstraction and productivity and persistently claims he can do the same with UML + profiles, some manual coding and reverse engineering - and that is a good thing. I believe UML and DSL's are - unfairly - often compared against each other. While there are some cases where doing this makes sense I think the bigger picture should deal with the question of when it makes sense to use the first and when the latter. In the end, both groups of approaches benefit from promotiong modeling in general, something many analysts say still happens far too little.

One morning on my way to the conference I saw a guy from a large German automotive supplier (I saw his email signature in Outlook) switching to his IDE, starting to do some coding. What made me smile was that the majority of his work consisted of copy pasting stuff and making small adjustments. Maybe one day I will again stand in that same train on that same subway line and see the same guy working a lot faster in a DSM environment that not only raises the abstraction level he works on to that of the automotive concepts and rules of his company but that also automates the tedious task of copy pasting the same stuff over and over again.

The other good thing that struck me is that more and more people are aware of MetaEdit+, I guess our efforts in working with many editors of leading magazines are starting to pay off: Looking further into domain-specific modeling fairly quickly leads you to it. Especially companies looking for a graphical modeling front-end to configuring or developing their financial, logistical or what-have-you systems see the benefits of having a modeling language that actually describes their system and that follows the rules that are valid in their unique design area.

I suppose the high of the conference for me was Markus Völters' session on MDSD in which he ousted his opinion on MetaEdit+ being clearly the leading model-driven development tool with the potential of taking the entire market.