Model-Driven Software Development: Technology, Engineering, Management

Chapter 2

MDSD – Basic Ideas and Terminology

This chapter introduces the most important basic concepts of Model-Driven Software Development, as well as the motivation for them. We prefer the abbreviation MDSD for Model-Driven Software Development over the less-precise variant ‘MDD’ (Model Driven Development). The first abbreviation has become more popular in the software modeling community over the past two years.

The Object Management Group’s Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is both a flavor and a standardization initiative for this approach. Our focus here is its practicability in software projects. In many respects our concepts and experiences are congruent with those of OMG’s MDA vision, but in other respects they differ. We point out the latter and discuss them. Apart from this, the MDA terminology, due to its standardization and pervasiveness, is extremely useful for providing an introduction to this topic, and this is exactly how you should approach the second part of this chapter: MDA provides the basic terminology for MDSD. The chapter’s third part introduces the concepts that have been missing until then and which are required to understand the case study.

2.1 The Challenge

In the twenty-first century software is all around us. The software industry has become one of the largest on the planet, and many of today’s most successful businesses are software production companies or offer services in the software field.

Software is today a relevant part of the machinery of all ...