MDA Explained: The Model Driven Architecture¿: Practice and Promise - Softcover

Kleppe, Anneke

Softcover

ISBN 10: 032119442X ISBN 13: 9780321194428

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional, 2003

Synopsis

This text introduces model driven architecture (MDA), a framework that stresses the importance of models in the software development process.

About this title

About the Author

Anneke Kleppe is a consultant and adviser at Klasse Objecten, which she founded in 1995 to train and coach companies on the use of object technology, modeling, and MDA. She was intensively involved in the development of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and the new UML 2.0 standard. The author of several books, Anneke started a knowledge center for object technology at KPN Research in Leidschendam, Netherlands. She is a member of the authoring team of the OCL 2 standard, where she has a special focus on the definition of the semantics of the OCL.

Jos Warmer is the primary author of the OCL standard. He is an active member of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) Revision Task Force, which defined the revisions in the UML 2.0 standard. Previously he was a member of the UML core team, where he was responsible for the development of the Object Constraint Language (OCL). The author of several books and numerous international articles, Jos is an advisor on the UML method and techniques at the De Nederlandsche Bank.

Wim Bast is Compuware’s OptimalJ MDA architect.

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From the Back Cover

"Jos Warmer’s work has contributed greatly to the semantics of the UML. From that perspective, and in this book, he offers insight on how one can and can’t use the UML to move to the next level of abstraction in building systems."
—Grady Booch

Experienced application developers often invest more time in building models than they do in actually writing code. Why? Well-constructed models make it easier to deliver large, complex enterprise systems on time and within budget. Now, a new framework advanced by the Object Management Group (OMG) allows developers to build systems according to their core business logic and data—independently of any particular hardware, operating system, or middleware.

Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is a framework based on the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and other industry standards for visualizing, storing, and exchanging software designs and models. However, unlike UML, MDA promotes the creation of machine-readable, highly abstract models that are developed independently of the implementation technology and stored in standardized repositories. There, they can be accessed repeatedly and automatically transformed by tools into schemas, code skeletons, test harnesses, integration code, and deployment scripts for various platforms.

Written by three members of OMG’s MDA standardization committee, MDA Explained gives readers an inside look at the advantages of MDA and how they can be realized. This book begins with practical examples that illustrate the application of different types of models. It then shifts to a discussion at the meta-level, where developers will gain the knowledge necessary to define MDA tools.

Highlights of this book include:

The MDA framework, including the Platform Independent Model (PIM) and Platform Specific Model (PSM)

OMG standards and the use of UML

MDA and Agile, Extreme Programming, and Rational Unified Process (RUP) development

How to apply MDA, including PIM-to-PSM and PSM-to-code transformations for Relational, Enterprise JavaBean (EJB), and Web models

Transformations, including controlling and tuning, traceability, incremental consistency, and their implications

Metamodeling

Relationships between different standards, including Meta Object Facility (MOF), UML, and Object Constraint Language (OCL)

The advent of MDA offers concrete ways to improve productivity, portability, interoperability, maintenance, and documentation dramatically. With this groundbreaking book, IT professionals can learn to tap this new framework to deliver enterprise systems most efficiently.

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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

For many years, the three of us have been developing software using object oriented techniques. We started with object oriented programming languages, like C++, Smalltalk, and Eiffel. Soon we felt the need to describe our software at a higher level of abstraction. Even before the first object oriented analysis and design methods, like Coad/Yourdon and OMT, were published, we used our own invented bubbles and arrows diagrams. This naturally led to questions like “What does this arrow mean?” and “What is the difference between this circle and that rectangle?”. We therefore rapidly decided to use the newly emerging methods to design and describe our software. During the years we found that we were spending more time on designing our models, than on writing code. The models helped us to cope with larger and more complex systems. Having a good model of the software available, made the process of writing code easier and in many cases even straightforward.

In 1997 some of us got involved in defining the first standard for object oriented modeling called UML. This was a major milestone that stimulated the use of modeling in the software industry. When the OMG launched its initiative on Model Driven Architecture we felt that this was logically the next step to take. People try to get more and more value from their high level models, and the MDA approach supports these efforts.

At that moment we realized that all these years we had naturally walked the path towards model driven development. Every bit of wisdom we acquired during our struggle with the systems we had to build, fitted in with this new idea of how to build software. It caused a feeling similar to an AHA-erlebnis: “Yes, this is it,” the same feeling we had years before when we first encountered the object-oriented way of thinking, and again when we first read the GOF book on design patterns. We feel that MDA could very well be the next major step forward in the way software is being developed. MDA brings the focus of software development to a higher level of abstraction, thereby raising the level of maturity of the IT industry.

We are aware of the fact that the grand vision of MDA, which Richard Soley, the president of the OMG, presents so eloquently, is not yet a reality. However some parts of MDA can already be used today, while others are under development. With this book we want to give you insight in what MDA means and what you can achieve, both today and in the future.

Anneke Kleppe, Jos Warmer, and Wim Bast
Soest, the Netherlands
January 2003

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Edition details

• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 032119442X
• ISBN 13: 9780321194428
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192