Keynote at Code Generation 2014: The business cases of modeling and generators
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The document discusses the benefits of model-driven development (MDD) and domain-specific modeling, emphasizing significant productivity improvements when tailored solutions are developed rather than utilizing off-the-shelf tools. It presents empirical research indicating that organizations may achieve productivity gains up to 289% and highlights the importance of collaboration and incremental development in creating effective modeling environments. Additionally, it outlines strategies for tool creation and customization, as well as the challenges and costs associated with language and generator development.
Keynote at Code Generation 2014: The business cases of modeling and generators
- 1. 12 April 2014 Juha-Pekka Tolvanen The business cases for modeling and generators
- 2. Various styles of modeling
- 3. MDD done correctly Work at a higher level of abstraction and automatically produce code, library calls, configuration, simulation... Specify less, generate more!
- 4. Gains “The work that earlier took a whole week, is now done during an afternoon”, an engineer at Elektrobit The measurement (n=6) revealed that Domain-Specific Modeling solution was on average 10 times as productive as the current development approach, study1 at Polar Productivity improvement is 289%, study2 at USAF – Over 130 tasks, both initial development and maintenance – The differences in the average performance of the subjects are statistically significant at confidence levels exceeding 99% 1) Kärnä, J., et al., Evaluating the Use of Domain-Specific Modeling in Practice, Workshop on DSM, 2007 2) Kieburtz, R., et al. A software engineering experiment in software component generation, ICSE, 1996
- 5. MDD research Recent empirical research in industry practices found that: success with modeling is most likely when companies develop their own bespoke modeling approaches, languages and tools rather than simply applying off-the- shelf solutions 1) Hutchinson, J., Whittle, J., Rouncefield, M. and Kristoffersen, S., “Empirical Assessment of MDE in Industry,” 2011 International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), pp.471-480. 2) Hutchinson, J., Rouncefield, M. and Whittle, J., “Model Driven Engineering Practices in Industry,” 2011 International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), pp. 633-642.
- 50. Number of railway languages?
- 52. 1) Mark Blackburn, Peter Denno, Virtual Design and Verification of Cyber-physical Systems: Industrial Process Plant Design, Procedia Computer Science, Volume 28, 2014
- 53. Detected productivity increase * Productivity proportional to earlier practice 500 % 300 % 750 % 600 % 200 % 750 % 500 % 600 % 0 % 100 % 200 % 300 % 400 % 500 % 600 % 700 % 800 % Embedded UI applications Message translation & validation Phone switch features Call processing services Adaptive cruise control Heart rate monitor J2EE web application Home automation Domain Percent Increase
- 55. PROCESS abc; START; TASK b_subscriber := subscriber_t_find (b_subnum); DECISION b_subscriber.bill_paid AND reserve_vc (b_vc); (T): OUTPUT initiate_answering_s (b_subscriber); NEXTSTATE works_done; (F): OUTPUT setup_nak_s TO cci_party; STOP; ENDDECISION; STATE works_done; INPUT ringing_s; TASK sso_party := SENDER; OUTPUT setup_ack_s TO cci_party; NEXTSTATE waiting_off_hook_s; INPUT input_busy_s; OUTPUT disconnect_fwd_req_s TO cci_party; NEXTSTATE waiting_disconnect_fwd_ack_s; ENDSTATE wait_ringing; STATE waiting_disconnect_fwd_ack_s; INPUT disconnect_fwd_ack_s; STOP; ENDSTATE waiting_disconnect_fwd_ack_s; STATE waiting_off_hook_s; INPUT off_hook_s; ...
- 56. Who creates and maintains them? 1. Standardization bodies: – ISO, OMG, etc. 2. Industry associations and groups: – ITU, SAE, AUTOSAR, EAST-ADL association, etc. 3. Tool vendors: – Labview, Simulink, Mendix, etc. 4. In-house: – Language engineers, tool-smiths, generator developers
- 57. 6 ways to get the tools needed 1. Find an existing and suitable tool 2. Write own tool from scratch 3. Write own tool based on frameworks 4. Metamodel, generate tool skeleton, add code for the rest 5. Metamodel, generate full tool over a framework 6. Metamodel, configure an existing tool with own language & generator Use tools to get your tool! – Meta-tools, CASE shells, metasystems, metaCASE tools, DSL tools, language workbenches
- 59. PSL/PSA Defining languages with: – Objects – Properties – Relationships 1 PROCESS hourly-enployee-procesing; 2 /* DATE OF IAST CHIANGE - JUN 26, 1976, 13:56:44 */ 3 DESCRIPTIONS; 4 this process performs those actions needed to interpret 5 time cards to produce a pay statement for each hourly 6 employee.; 7 KEYWORDS: independent; 8 ATTRIBUTES ARE: 9 complexity-level 10 high; 11 GENERATES: pay-statement, error-listing, 12 hourly-employee-report; 13 RECEIVES: time-card; 14 SUBPARTS ARE: hourly-paycheck-validation, hourly-emp-update, 15 h-report-entry-generation, 16 hourly-paycheck-production; 17 PART OF: payroll-processing; 18 DERIVES: pay-statement 19 USING: time-card, hourly-employee-record; 20 DERIVES: hourly-employee-report 21 USING: time-card, hourly-employee-record; 22 DERIVES: error-listing 23 USING: time-card, hourly-employee-record; 24 PROCEDURE; 25 1. compute gross pay from time card data. 26 2. compute tax, from gross pay. 27 3. subtract tax from gross pay to obtain net pay. 28 4. update hourly employee record accordingly. 29 5. update department record accordingly. 30 6. generate paycheck. 31 note: if status code specifies that the employee did not work 32 this week, no processing will be done for this employee.; 33 HAPPENS: 34 number-of-payments TIMES-PER pay-period; 35 TRIGGERED BY: hourly-emp-processing-event; 36 TERMINATION-CAUSES: 37 new-employee-processing-event; 38 SECURITY IS: company-only; Teichroew, D., Hershey, E., PSL/PSA, IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, Vol SE-3 , 1, 1977
- 60. Eclipse TBK Three parts in modeling tool definition: – Types • Node and link – Representation • Symbols containing shapes – UI • Menus, selectors… MacRoibeaird, S., Developing & Integrating Tools In Eclipse/PCTE, 1990
- 61. MetaEdit: abstract & concrete syntax MetaEdit Personal, MetaCase, 1991
- 62. Quality of the language depends on its definition! Definition of UML contains rules for elements that have been removed several versions ago - 5 years ago Fragmented definition • Concepts in metamodel • Rules in constraint language • Notation in symbol definitions • Transformations in code, … • Tool functions in code, .ico … Integrated definition • Change in one place updates it everywhere: • in rules and constraints, • in symbols, • in generators, • toolbars, icons, etc. 361 errors in UML 2.0: Bauerdick et al, in Procs of UML 2004, LNCS 3273, Springer, 2004 320 errors in UML 2.3: Wilke & Demuth, 2010, journal.ub.tu-berlin.de/eceasst/article/download/669/682 Quality of resulting language (& tool)
- 63. Incremental language development Nobody gets the language right at the first try! The best way to build languages is in incremental steps together with language users • Language defined disconnected from the users • Language defined as a spec on paper • Partial, like plain schema • Language changed without considering work done • Language users are directly involved • Each “unit” of the language tried out in the real world • Influence of language change checked against other parts of the language
- 64. Effort to define language (& tool) Two insurance-specific languages: “Insurance experts specify (with a tool) insurance products while at the backend the models are exported to a runtime execution environment” Case from CodeGen’11 talk Case in www.dsmbook.com PropertySpec: / Renewal Date RoleSpec: Named Driver RuleSpec: Minimum Insured Age Calculation: Calculate Renewal Date Product: FleetPlan Product: FleetN-N Product: FleetN-N
- 65. Big variety in the effort to define DSL: – Insurance DSL in CodeGen’11: 6 calendar months, 7 persons – Insurance DSL in dsmbook.com: 11 days, 1 person Fully-loaded annual pay rate: 80.000 USD – Cost varies a lot based on organizations and countries Case from CodeGen’11 talk Calendar months: 6 Persons: 7 Investment in time: 3½ years Investment in $: 280.000 Case in www.dsmbook.com Calendar months: 0,5 Persons: 1 Investment in time: 11 days Investment in $: 3.520 Effort to define language (& tool)
- 66. Empirical tool comparison*: – Same language, different tools * El Kouhen et al. Evaluation of Modeling Tools Adaptation, 2012, http://hal.archives- ouvertes.fr/docs/00/70/68/41/PDF/Evaluation_of_Modeling_Tools_Adaptation.pdf Effort to get tool support Days to implement BPMN language
- 67. From products to projects Product development Apply many times – Several apps/features Maintenance Predictability Initial investment shared over time/ products/variants Projects Apply mainly for the current case Next customer? A single project does not usually have a budget for language and generator development
- 68. To apply languages and generators in project organizations… Build them fast Accept uncertainty on the language constructs Be ready to change frequently Be ready to throw away, and start another Allow language users to participate Language Workbenches must support project organizations too!
- 69. Time needed to create languages and generators must be short 63 language concepts XML generator 60 language concepts C, HTML, build script generators 36 language concepts Assembler generator 77 language concepts Python generator Java generator for simulation 143 language concepts J2EE generator Man days
- 70. MetaEdit Personal, MetaCase, 1991 Evolution (of language & models) Maintenance is the biggest part in development! Insurance DSL in CodeGen 2011: “took 5 months to update models when language evolved” Language update scenario 1 1. Change language 2. Change tooling 3. Share/package updates 4. Install updates for all... 5. Update existing models Language update scenario 2 1. Change language – shared automatically – automatic tool update – models update automatically
- 71. Business case in terms of money 5 months of work: – By one person: 33.000 USD (or whole team: 233.000 USD) – What the other language users are doing meanwhile? Missed opportunity: 5 months later is often bigger cost than 5 months of work! Calendar months: 5 Investment in $: 33.000 - 233.000 Calendar months: 0 Investment in $: 0
- 72. Generator development process Generator developer needs to master many things: metamodel (&models), generator language, target language/libraries Fragmented: • Metamodel in X(SD) • Model in X(ML) • Generator in X(SLT) • Output in .x files Integrated: • Access metamodel from generator definition • Get from generated code to source models • Access models while debugging generators
- 73. Generator speed A company visiting CodeGen few years ago was using 4-core Pentium machine to run their generator for a nightly build... and nights became too short! Big differences between tools and generators Comparison with an example*: • Read model • Read metamodel • Use temporary model storage/M2M • + execution Cuadrado & Molina, Building Domain-Specific Languages for Model- Driven Development, IEEE Software, 2007, http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2007.135 & Kelly, S., blog: http://www.metacase.com/blogs/stevek/blogView?entry=3385914921
- 74. Scalability, Collaboration Development is about collaboration! MDD is more than a few diagrams, it can be gigabytes of models Single-user tool • 1 (XML) file • 1 person edits or… • diff & merge done later • Opening a larger model may take minutes... Collaboration tool • Repository with projects • Collaborative editing • No need to diff & merge • Handle billions of elements, use lazy loading, etc.
- 75. MDD solution created correctly Work at higher level of abstraction during language creation too! Define only the needed parts, get rest automatically Special attention to: – Improving quality of language definitions – Incremental development approach, user participation – Expect (continuous) change in the domain – Effort and costs of language development – Generator development process and generator speed – Scalability of the tools
- 76. Thank you! For references, contact jpt@metacase.com * Some of the examples shown are available to download at www.metacase.com Europe: MetaCase Ylistönmäentie 31 FI-40500 Jyväskylä, Finland Phone +358 14 641 000 Fax +358 420 648 606 USA: MetaCase 5605 North MacArthur Blvd. 11th Floor, Irving, Texas 75038 Phone (972) 819-2039 Fax (480) 247-5501