Executable UML: A Foundation for Model-Driven Architecture

Chapter 1. Introduction

Organizations want systems. They don't want processes, meetings, models, documents, or even code.^[1] They want systems that work—as quickly as possible, as cheaply as possible, and as easy to change as possible. Organizations don't want long software development lead-times and high costs; they just want to reduce systems development hassles to the absolute minimum.

^[1] Robert Block began his book The Politics of Projects[1] in a similar manner.

But systems development is a complicated business. It demands distillation of overlapping and contradictory requirements; invention of good abstractions from those requirements; fabrication of an efficient, cost-effective implementation; and clever solutions to isolated coding and ...