MDA Distilled: Principles of Model-Driven Architecture

The Importance of Standards

The network effect is the notion that economies of scale grow exponentially as the number of nodes increases. The classic example is the telephone. One telephone on the planet is worthless; a hundred or a thousand, much better. Nowadays, area codes breed like rabbits, and people talk to themselves on the streets in a manner that would have caused them to be locked up only a few years ago. Perhaps less benign is the use of lowest-common-denominator tools “because everyone else uses them,” even if the tools themselves don't inspire excitement. Four-letter model-building and word-processing tools spring to mind as examples.

Standards, with interchange and interoperability of course, mean that you can buy each of these ...