[News.eclipse.technology.mddi] Re: Do I understand MDDi?

[Ed Willink <ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Tas

It is perhaps easier to understand by analogy with tools such as make or Ant.

Available resources/files/rules/tasks are declared and then a problem is
posed; make/build executable. Within the scope of the user-defined and built-in
rules, make/Ant just does it.

MDDi should make this all much more robust by ensuring that each declaration
is associated with a meta-model that defines its type. The adaptors should
make it all much more powerful by enabling access to substantive formats
and transformation engines.

The adaptors therefore enable an existing meta-modelling format to be accessed,
or an existing transformation capability to be exploited - all within a consistent
uniform meta-modelled discipline. The Model bus transfers the output of one
tool from its preferred representation to the input of another tool performing
whatever conversions are necessary to satisfy the recipient's needs.

So you could declare that a UML 1.4 meta-model exists in a Rose repository,
even though your code is modelled using NetBeans. Then you request a particular stylised
form of Java to be generated using Eclipse SWT widgets.

The MDDi tool plans and activates a transformation sequence from your source models
to your specified target models using whatever transformations have been registered. You
don't need to know how it happened - provided it works.

But when it doesn't, another role for MDDi is to provide good browsing/debugging aids.

	Regards

		Ed Willink

Tas Frangoullides wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I read the latest white paper and I am still not sure I understand the scope
> of the project.
>
> On one hand it sounds like a modeling tool platform where different
> modelling tools and pluged in via adaptors, much the same way that eclipse
> lets you combine text editors, source control and compilers. The various
> tools could then be used in a consistent manner irrespective of thier
> underlying protocol.
>
> On the other hand it sounds like a scriptable build tool for orchistrating
> these mda scenarios, lets say an Ant for MDA. I currently do something along
> these line using Jelly and my own custom tags for executing transformations
> and code generators. In time I was looking to create a uml profile for
> modelling the build process and then generating the script. Is this
> something MDDi would do?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tas.