iPhonical and model-driven software development for the iPhone

iPhonicalSoftware Development
and Model-Driven

Heiko Behrens (itemis)

backchannel via #iphonical #iphonedevcon09

/ soft·ware de·vel·op·ment / n.
the set of activities that results in
software products. ~ may include
research, new development,
modiﬁcation, reuse, maintenance,
or any other activities that result in
software products.

Sketching some

Typical Situations
in
Software Development

#iphonical #iphonedevcon09

Anatomy of Modern Software

Software artifact


manually written code Frameworks

Libraries


manually written
code

Frameworks

schematic code (manually written)

Libraries

(rote) coding doesn’t cut it!

Our Problems

Can we solve them with code generation?

Talking about

Common Approaches
to
Advoid Redundancy


Wizards in Practice

Ruby on Rails AppLoop

Xcode Project Templates

This wizard whips up a
complete and running
legacy application with
just a single click.

Designers in Practice

Graphical
Designers

Interface Core
Builder Data

Interface Builder
is no abstraction
but another approach
to object construction.
Handwritten code is
still needed.

Core Data
produces code a
developer can work
with but overwrites
handcrafted value.

Introducing

Model-Driven
Software Development
#mdsd

Raise the level
of abstraction
where possible
and generate
code wisely.

One cannot
abstract away
everything.
Manual code is
great for all the
special cases and
details.

Use the best of both worlds at the same time.

Isn’t
Core Data
#mdsd?

So, what’s
# iPhonical
about?
#iphonedevcon09

View DSL View / GUI NIB

Entity DSL

ViewController ViewController
Remote DSL

Service DSL
Transfomer
ServiceFacades
Mapper

ORM / DAO RemoteClient
Entities Messages

Sqlite JSON HTTP

Any
ServerFacade
RestService

Server Server
Entities Messages

JBoss / RestEasy

Thoughts of an iPhone developer

View DSL View / GUI NIB

Entity DSL
Better
Manually
ViewController ViewController
Remote DSL

Service DSL

What’s this?
Transfomer
ServiceFacades
Mapper

Core Data
ORM / DAO
Entities
Framework
Messages
RemoteClient

Sqlite JSON HTTP

Any
ServerFacade
RestService

Most likely
Server
Entities
Server
Messages

legacy JBoss / RestEasy

Will now present
Objective Resource
or
“iPhone on Rails”

Entities with Objective Resource
#import "ObjectiveResource.h" #import "ObjectiveResource.h"
#import "Dog.h" #import "Person.h"

@interface Person : NSObject { @implementation Person
! NSString *personId; @synthesize personId;
! NSDate *updatedAt; @synthesize updatedAt;
! NSDate *createdAt; @synthesize createdAt;
! NSString *name; @synthesize name;
}
// handle pluralization
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *personId; + (NSString *) getRemoteCollectionName {
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSDate *updatedAt; ! return @"people";
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSDate *createdAt; }
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *name;
- (NSArray *) findAllDogs {
// returns dogs ! return [Dog findRemote:[NSString stringWithFormat:
- (NSArray *) findAllDogs; @"%@/dogs", personId, nil]];
- (NSArray *) findAllDogsWithResponse: (NSError * *) aError; }

@end - (NSArray *) findAllDogsWithResponse: (NSError * *) aError {
! return [Dog findRemote:[NSString stringWithFormat:
@"%@/dogs", personId, nil] withResponse: aError];
}

- (void) dealloc {
! [personId release];
! [updatedAt release];
! [createdAt release];
! [name release];
! [super dealloc];
}

@end

Real Information Content
#import "ObjectiveResource.h" #import "ObjectiveResource.h"
#import "Dog.h" #import "Person.h"

@interface Person : NSObject { @implementation Person
! NSString *personId; @synthesize personId;
! NSDate *updatedAt; @synthesize updatedAt;
! NSDate *createdAt; @synthesize createdAt;
! NSString *name; @synthesize name;
}
// handle pluralization
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *personId; + (NSString *) getRemoteCollectionName {
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSDate *updatedAt; ! return @"people";
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSDate *createdAt; }
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *name;
- (NSArray *) findAllDogs {
// returns dogs ! return [Dog findRemote:[NSString stringWithFormat:
- (NSArray *) findAllDogs; @"%@/dogs", personId, nil]];
- (NSArray *) findAllDogsWithResponse: (NSError * *) aError; }

@end - (NSArray *) findAllDogsWithResponse: (NSError * *) aError {
! return [Dog findRemote:[NSString stringWithFormat:
@"%@/dogs", personId, nil] withResponse: aError];
}

- (void) dealloc {
! [personId release];
! [updatedAt release];
! [createdAt release];
! [name release];
! [super dealloc];
}

@end

Objective-C #ftl ?

You’d want to core an apple...

You’d want to core a few more apples...

Still the best tool for the job?

A speciﬁc tool
for a speciﬁc job

Idea behind #iphonical :

Use DSLs to describe the world

#iphonedevcon09

! ! entity Car {
! ! ! ! ! ! String name;
! ! ! ! ! ! String number;
! ! ! ! ! ! Integer km;
! ! ! ! ! ! JourneyEntry * journeys;
! ! };
! !
!
!
!
!
!
!
entity JourneyEntry {
! ! ! ! Location startLocation;
Entities
! ! ! ! ! ! Location endLocation;
! ! ! ! ! ! String comment;
! ! ! ! ! ! Integer startKm;
! ! ! ! ! ! Integer endKm;
! ! ! ! ! ! Car car;
! ! ! ! ! ! Driver driver;
! ! ! ! ! ! Reason reason;
! ! };

! ! entity CarDataResponse {
! ! ! ! ! ! String creationDate;
!
!
!
!
!
!
! ! ! ! Car car;
! ! ! ! Location location;
! ! ! ! JourneyEntry journey;
Services / Messages
! ! ! ! ! ! Driver driver;
! ! };

! ! restService iDriveLogService "/idrivelogservice" {
! ! ! ! ! ! baseUrl "http://localhost:8080/iDriveLogRESTWebServices";
! ! ! ! ! ! get data "/data" response:CarDataResponse;
! ! };

! ! viewController Root {

UI
! ! ! ! ! ! ui Label myLabel;
! ! ! ! ! ! ui Textfield myTextfield;
! ! ! ! ! ! action myAction;
! ! };

Leverage Entity DSL
for
Objective Resource

View / GUI

Entity DSL

ViewController

Objective Resource

Entities and
Mapping

JSON / HTTP

Rails
Application

Wait...

#iPhonical works
with any framework
?
#iphonedevcon09

#iPhonical: Where to get
and its future
#iphonedevcon09

Open source Apache License 2.0

code
code.google.com/p/iphonical/

Currently 8 participants

What’s comming up?

! Publications in upcoming
Eclipse Magazin
! ShowCase about Conferences
! Tighter integration with Xcode

twitter @HBehrens
blog http://HeikoBehrens.net

mail Heiko.Behrens@itemis.de
xing http://www.xing.com/proﬁle/Heiko_Behrens
linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/HeikoBehrens

code.google.com/p/iphonical

iPhonical and model-driven software development for the iPhone

More Related Content

What's hot (19)

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to iPhonical and model-driven software development for the iPhone (20)

More from Heiko Behrens (9)

Recently uploaded (20)

iPhonical and model-driven software development for the iPhone