Responding to several at once, sorry for any confusion.
- Scott
Post by Jason GormanVery interesting, Scott. I'm literally about to have lunch with one of the
directors from Softeam/Objecteering, and Test-driven Analysis & Design (or
"Test-driven Modeling") is something I'm keen to address with him. I've
proposed an approach (which I do on paper because there's no tool support
for it) that borrows liberally from Catalysis, but applied to an entirely
test-driven development process. The basics are at
http://www.parlezuml.com/tutorials/tdad/intro.htm (plug plug)
<snip>
Just added a link to it from my page.
Post by Jason Gorman<snip>
You write that embedded systems are a "spectecularly small percentage of the
overall market". I'm not sure if I should agree. I thought in the contrary
that embedded systems (nowadays) have a significant share of the software
market and this share is still rising.
<snip>
Do you have any figures? Gut feel tells me that it's less than 5% of the
overall software development market.
Post by Jason Gorman<snip>
However, I believe that there is a good (and not much explored) case for a
more limited form of MDA, where model execution is used as a mechanism for
exploring and validating models early in the development process, even if
the final code of the system is not fully generated or perhaps not generated
at all. I believe that using this "scaled-down" form of MDA can give
This makes a lot of sense to me. Do you have any links to articles written
about it?
Post by Jason Gorman- Stakeholders do not have to understand PIMs, as they can review and check
the model as an executing model-driven prototype (Your point 4).
- You are well placed to use TDM (or TDMDA), and there is no reason for
model validation tools not to provide this (Your point 6).
Other than the fact that they haven't been built yet. ;-)
Post by Jason Gorman- You are not dependent on the tool vendor beyond the model validation
phase -- in particular, not for deployment or support of the operational
system. (Your point 7).
Yes, unless you decide to take the models the next step into detailed design.
I'm not sure that many people would be willing to do that much modeling and
then throw the models away, could be wrong though.
Post by Jason GormanYou do still need skilled modellers (your points 1, 2 and 3), but in much
smaller numbers than you would if you were using MDA throughout the
development. In my experience of using this technique, a team of three to
five modellers can support a large project (total team size > 30).
The big tool vendors are all pursuing the "soup to nuts" MDA model. I think
that there is a market opportunity for less ambitious tools -- and that this
would both allow smaller tool vendors to enter the market and also allow
organisations interested in MDA to experiment with, and get value from,
model driven approaches without committing themselves to the hilt, in terms
of both money and risk, from the outset.
There is definitely a good market for focused tools, IMHO.
<snip>
Post by Jason Gorman<snip>
I link three things together when discussing tools and UML: modelling
maturity, process
capability, and tool sophistication. I don't think you can make any real
progress in one
without having to address the others. In the end, you extract value from
your tools only to
the least-capable level of the three. For instance, there is no point in
buying round-trip
engineering or MDA tools if you have a weak process or immature
models. CMM would say that
you shouldn't be buying tools until you're at CMM Level 3 because you
won't know if they make
any difference.
<snip>
With regards to:
1. Modeling maturity, I have to agree that you need people with effective
modeling skills, ideally effective agile modeling skills.
2. Process capability, I believe that you need people who can work together
effectively to develop, support, and operate systems. That doesn't mean
you need a well-defined process, it just means you need to know what you're
doing.
3. Tool sophistication, I'm not so sure. My experience is that you can be
incredibly effective with paper and whiteboards, and those tools clearly
are not that sophisticated.
- Scott
====================================================
Scott W. Ambler
Senior Consultant, Ronin International, Inc.
www.ronin-intl.com/company/scottAmbler.html
www.agiledata.org
www.agilemodeling.com
www.ambysoft.com
www.enterpriseunifiedprocess.info
www.modelingstyle.info
www.ronin-intl.com
For more information about AM, visit the Agile Modeling Home Page at www.agilemodeling.com
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