Domain-specific Modeling: Welcome to the Next Generation of Software Modeling
Domain-specific modeling promises to change the modeling landscape by providing a greater level of abstraction from code than UML, providing modeling constructs for developers that mimic the real-world objects more closely, and most importantly, providing complete code-generation capabilities, which together lead to a much more productive way for developers to model applications.
by Dr. Juha-Pekka Tolvanen
October 28, 2005
ere's an interesting coincidence: The "UML Conference," where I delivered the keynote speech a few days ago, changed its name to "MoDELS & UML." Similarly, the "UML & Design World" conference where I spoke a few weeks ago was previously called "UML World." The fact that both these leading conferences have changed their name indicates a big shift in the modeling world that may well lead us away from the one-size-fits-all approach offered by the Unified Modeling Language. One of the new approaches causing this shift is called Domain-Specific Modeling, DSM for short. In this first of a series of articles I will introduce DSM with a short example. Later articles will provide the opportunity to dive a little deeper into the subject, compare it to other approaches, identify characteristics of areas where DSM makes most sense and, of course, show real world examples from the software industry.
Domain-Specific Modeling mainly aims to do two things. First, raise the level of abstraction beyond programming by specifying the solution in a design language that directly uses concepts and rules from a specific problem domain. Second, generate final products in a chosen programming language from these high-level specifications. This automation is possible because both the language and generators need fit the requirements of only one company's problem domain. In other words, they are both domain-specific.
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ere's an interesting coincidence: The "UML Conference," where I delivered the keynote speech a few days ago, changed its name to "MoDELS & UML." Similarly, the "UML & Design World" conference where I spoke a few weeks ago was previously called "UML World." The fact that both these leading conferences have changed their name indicates a big shift in the modeling world that may well lead us away from the one-size-fits-all approach offered by the Unified Modeling Language. One of the new approaches causing this shift is called Domain-Specific Modeling, DSM for short. In this first of a series of articles I will introduce DSM with a short example. Later articles will provide the opportunity to dive a little deeper into the subject, compare it to other approaches, identify characteristics of areas where DSM makes most sense and, of course, show real world examples from the software industry.
