It turns out that building mobile solutions is quite difficult. The rapid evolution of the devices and their capabilities combined with increasing end users expectations and the reliance on a composite technology environment create a new "form factor" that is quite different from traditional information systems. Not surprisingly, vendor SDKs were never prepared for such a form factor. Some of them even date back nearly 25 years.

Model Driven Software Development (MDSD) appears to be a particularly well suited approach to create a new generation of tools and processes to address the unique challenges of Mobile Solution construction. In this presentation, we will first focus on what makes building mobile solutions unique. We will then introduce Canappi, an Xtext based Mobile Application Development Platform, it's solution model and its code generation infrastructure. We will then share some of the results achieved by Canappi and the perspectives on its evolution.

A conference of Les Jeudis des Modèles by Michel Chaudron, Associate Professor at the Institute of Computer Science of Leiden University in the Netherlands

What is the state of UML modeling in practice ?
How can we assess the quality of UML models ?
How do engineers look at UML models ?
Do UML models actually help in creating better software ?

Modeling is a common part of modern day software engineering practice. Little evidence is known about how models are made and how they help in producing better software. In this talk I will present highlights from the last decade of research that I have performed in the area of software modeling using UML.

Biography

Michel Chaudron is Associate Professor at the Institute of Computer Science of Leiden University in the Netherlands where he leads a research group in Software Engineering. He is program director of the M.Sc. program ICT in Business. He obtained his Ph.D. in the area of formal methods and programming languages for parallel computing. His research interests are in: software architecture, software design, software modeling, software composition and empirical studies in sofware engineering.

In this talk I will tell you MY story of developing a successful Model Driven Software Factory with a fast growing user base.

I will cover topics like selecting a domain, designing DSLs, growing a DSL (evolution), generating the application, quality and testing, release planning, and creating a user base.

I will also tell you how I came to the conclusion that there is no future for Model-Driven Development.

EA-MDE (Empirical Assessment of the Efficacy of MDE) is a multidisciplinary project that brings together computer and social scientists to identify, understand and document the factors that influence whether MDE adoption is successful or not.
A key focus of the project is on social and organizational factors as well as technical factors. The current project is a pilot project which aims to test the feasibility of assessing MDE practices empirically and aims to feed back the results to industry.
To date, we have carried out an assessment of MDE adoption using a variety of social science methods, including online questionnaires and in-depth interviews with industry practitioners. In the near future, we also plan detailed observational studies of MDE use in practice.
The talk will present early results from the project based on preliminary analysis of our data which will provide some useful insights into how model-driven engineering is being used in practice in industry.