There has certainly been a lot of discussion over the past couple of years about MDA. I have sat on the sidelines, an interested observer, wondering quite how well the whole thing will work.
Unlike most development approaches, the model is the primary artifact and not the source code. This leads to the following concerns:
- The versioning of the model will be interesting. Depending on how it is stored and encoded. Remembering the nightmares with Rational Rose Models I'm not sanguine.
- XMI and UML are not of themselves programming languages and so are not able to encode business logic. This means that a significant secondary artifact is the business logic code. The interaction between the model and the business logic will be interesting.
- Tuning and customisation. The templates for conversion from the Platform Independent Model (PIM) to the Platform Specific Model (PSM) may be adjustable, but how far can you go? Can you apply specifc tunings/customisations to specific components?
- The tools to accomplish this seem likely to be complex, what is the scope for vendor lock in?
I've tinkered with AndroMDA and had mixed results. However I will be working with OptimalJ now, so as I gain experience, I will try and record what I learn here.
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