It all started with Eric Newcomer's statement:
Many people look toward graphic arts, line drawings, boxes, circles and arrows to find the future of software.Since then the common ground was formed:
But I can't really see it.
Software has been language based since the beginning. Proposing that in the future, software will be written using UML and MDA is, to me, like saying books will be written entirely with pictures.
Ok, so some books are entirely pictoral, and icons are important if not critical to human life as we know it. But I can't really see how it's possible to impart real knowledge without using language. Or create precise enough computer instructions.
I can't see that the drawing approach will really work. I don't know of any graphical software development tool that has yet to address the entire lifecycle; or that generates code of sufficient quality.
I think it's just a problem that isn't meant to be solved.
- Models can have common ui notation and be graphically driven
- Models can drive metadata
- The graphical notation and the resulting metadata are two completely different concepts and should be managed that way
- XML is a great way to drive a metadata approach
Jeff Schneider's round-up
Eric Newcomers original post: Graphically Yours
Stefan Tilkov in More MDA Critique