Les jeudis des modèles

Modeling effectively: insights from empirical studies

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 14:30:00 +0200

A conference of Les Jeudis des Modèles by Michel Chaudron, Associate Professor at the Institute of Computer Science of Leiden University in the Netherlands

What is the state of UML modeling in practice ?
How can we assess the quality of UML models ?
How do engineers look at UML models ?
Do UML models actually help in creating better software ?

Modeling is a common part of modern day software engineering practice. Little evidence is known about how models are made and how they help in producing better software. In this talk I will present highlights from the last decade of research that I have performed in the area of software modeling using UML.

Biography

Michel Chaudron is Associate Professor at the Institute of Computer Science of Leiden University in the Netherlands where he leads a research group in Software Engineering. He is program director of the M.Sc. program ICT in Business. He obtained his Ph.D. in the area of formal methods and programming languages for parallel computing. His research interests are in: software architecture, software design, software modeling, software composition and empirical studies in sofware engineering.

Why there is no future for mModel-Driven Development

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 14:30:00 +0100

In this talk I will tell you MY story of developing a successful Model Driven Software Factory with a fast growing user base.

I will cover topics like selecting a domain, designing DSLs, growing a DSL (evolution), generating the application, quality and testing, release planning, and creating a user base.

I will also tell you how I came to the conclusion that there is no future for Model-Driven Development.

How to succeed (or fall) Model-Driven Engineering

Thu, 27 May 2010 14:30:35 +0200

EA-MDE (Empirical Assessment of the Efficacy of MDE) is a multidisciplinary project that brings together computer and social scientists to identify, understand and document the factors that influence whether MDE adoption is successful or not.
A key focus of the project is on social and organizational factors as well as technical factors. The current project is a pilot project which aims to test the feasibility of assessing MDE practices empirically and aims to feed back the results to industry.
To date, we have carried out an assessment of MDE adoption using a variety of social science methods, including online questionnaires and in-depth interviews with industry practitioners. In the near future, we also plan detailed observational studies of MDE use in practice.
The talk will present early results from the project based on preliminary analysis of our data which will provide some useful insights into how model-driven engineering is being used in practice in industry.

What they don't teach you about software at school : Be smart

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:50:09 +0100

One of the most popular buzzwords in software development is agile. Today everyone wants to be agile. That is good! However, being agile is not enough.You also need to be smart. What does that mean? Smart is about being agile, but it is also about doing the right things, the right way. You can become smarter through training. However, without experience your alternatives are too many and only a few of them are smart. Experience is of course something you can get sooner or later, but it takes time if you must learn by your own mistakes. This is where the utilization of "smart-cases" becomes essential. In this talk, we will describe a large number of smart-cases when developing software. It is about working with people, teams, projects, requirement, architecture, modeling, documentation, testing, process, and more.

The unbearable stupidity of modeling

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:00:00 +0200

" The unbearable stupidity of modeling " ou " L'insupportable stupidité des approches à modèles " Conférence en langue anglaise animée par Ed Merks Ed Merks reprendra une version actualisée de sa très populaire présentation sur ‘L'insupportable stupidité des approches à modèles'. Il répondra aux arguments classiques des détracteurs de ces approches à modèles pour montrer par exemple qu'elles n'ont aucune raison d'être moins performantes que les approches par programmation directe ou de ne pas passer à l'échelle.Bien au contraire elles permettent très souvent d'obtenir à la fois des améliorations significatives de performances et des gains importants de productivité. Il passera en revue tous les clichés négatifs véhiculés par ceux qui ne sont pas encore convaincus des avantages de l'Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles. Ed Merks est très connu dans la communauté de l'ingénierie des modèles en tant que co-responsable du projet EMP (Eclipse Modeling Project) et responsable du projet EMF (Eclipse Modeling Framework). Il a une expérience de plus de 25 ans en modélisation. Après avoir obtenu un Ph.D. à l'Université Simon Fraser, il a passé 16 ans chez IBM (Senior Technical Staff Member) et il est maintenant partenaire de la société Itemis. Son ouvrage "EMF: Eclipse Modeling Framework" dont la seconde édition va paraître prochainement a largement contribué à diffuser et à populariser les solutions open source à l'Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles. Le résumé Modeling is simply over-hyped promises all of which fall far short of the mark like so much of the technobabbel generated by the world's software marketeers. The reasons why modeling is doomed to failure are seemingly endless. • The learning curve is too steep. Only someone with a Ph.D. can actually understand UML, or at least do a good job pretending. • When I hear the word "meta model" it turns me cold; talk of "meta meta models" makes me want to cry. • Modeling's complexity will only distract me from solving the problem at hand thereby slowing me down. • Modeling is totally redundant. Java already has a reflective object model, so why would I need another one? Learning one general purpose programming language is more than enough of a challenge and should be more than sufficient. They're Turing complete after all, so it's provably true. • Modeling is simply too restrictive thereby limiting my creative abilities. • It's patently ridiculous to believe that modeling will be sufficient to generate my whole application without need for writing actual code. • Generated code is of poor quality, performs poorly, and is difficult to understand and maintain. I can do it much better myself by hand. • I don't like all those stupid diagrams. They just don't scale. A textual representation is far more manageable. I simply don't need a graphical rendering of my code. • Domain specific languages will create a Tower of Babel rife with formalisms that only the original developer understands. • XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) is unspeakably horrible. I want nothing to do with it. • Modeling is just a ploy to ensure that I'll need to buy expensive tools. Tool vendors tend to support their tools for only a few years before changing them all around as part of some new marketing campaign, thereby risking my long term investment. • I won't be able to do agile iterative development but rather will be stuck with an onerous formal waterfall process. • My project isn't big enough to need all that formal modeling overhead. • If modeling really did work well, I might as well out source my high tech job to the developing world. Clearly modeling is doomed to failure, unless of course these are all misconceptions... In fact, they are exactly that.

20 ans d'ILOG : des objets aux modèles

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:30:00 +0200

"Des objets vers les modèles via les règles métier : l'expérience ILOG"

Lessons learned in building a model driven development platform for mobile solutions

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 14:30:00 +0100

It turns out that building mobile solutions is quite difficult. The rapid evolution of the devices and their capabilities combined with increasing end users expectations and the reliance on a composite technology environment create a new "form factor" that is quite different from traditional information systems. Not surprisingly, vendor SDKs were never prepared for such a form factor. Some of them even date back nearly 25 years.

Model Driven Software Development (MDSD) appears to be a particularly well suited approach to create a new generation of tools and processes to address the unique challenges of Mobile Solution construction. In this presentation, we will first focus on what makes building mobile solutions unique. We will then introduce Canappi, an Xtext based Mobile Application Development Platform, it's solution model and its code generation infrastructure. We will then share some of the results achieved by Canappi and the perspectives on its evolution.

Overview of the State Analysis (en français)

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:30:00 +0200

"L'ingénierie système et l'ingénierie du logiciel au Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) de la NASA"