No more MDD in OSLO

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Permalink Reply by Vlad VARNICA on November 11, 2009 at 12:52pm

It seems to me that a large majority of current projects are doing a bottom up approach. I mean from database to code and not a MDD top down approach from model to code and database.
The main problem is the non understanding of the object development concept among a large majority of developers.What is happening in project today is that developers model there database (e.g. business classes), then add a glue between these classes and keep going developing on the top of entities coming from the database they have created.
It is simple, not really intelligent but covers the average low education level of many developers.

This Microsoft decision is therefore on business point of view logical in order to save research costs and target a larger community.
btw, it is still possible for Microsoft to buy a company and add MDD extensions to dotnet. Why should there bother about MDD if they have the cash ?

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Permalink Reply by Angelo Hulshout on November 11, 2009 at 3:17pm

I saw your tweet on this. It's too bad, but not very different from what happened with DSL tools: where others were trying to define DSLs for narrow, specific domains, Microsoft aimed for the ambiguous, broad domain of '.NET enterprise applications'. This is almost the same thing all over. Vlad could be right: there's no quick money in MDD for Microsoft right now, so why should they bother? I agree only partly on the education level, but bottom line I guess Microsoft sees no market pull for MDD, while it does see a market pull for modeling of databases. That's doing business...

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Permalink Reply by Jorge Ubeda on November 11, 2009 at 10:07pm

I have followed Oslo since its very origin, because it seemed to be a drastic change and almost the first approach to a model driven point of view for designing from Microsoft; a more consistent way than Software Factories was, a return to UML consideration, and other known lines of development. But as soon it started its way, Oslo became oversold: too much promises, but few real stuff. I´m astonished on how a product with no clear goals and fundaments have created expectations, having adopters without almost anything to test.
Microsoft seems to be a giant without a head moving from side to side. I don´t agree that an erratic plan could be recovered easily. It would hurt its customer base, and shows a bad business model. Is it possible to commit with a tool that is abandoned a year later?

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Permalink Reply by Peter Adriaenssens on November 11, 2009 at 6:07pm

Only in Oslo?

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Permalink Reply by Jorge Ubeda on November 11, 2009 at 7:25pm

Could you explain yourself a little more?

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Permalink Reply by Pedro J. Molina on November 11, 2009 at 11:51pm

More opinions about Purdy's post:
- JJ. Dubray
- Jordan Terrel

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Permalink Reply by Pedro J. Molina on November 12, 2009 at 12:02am

More than the rebranding issue by itself, I guess what really annoys JJ and a some of us in more or less degree is the over-hype generated during a year and half to finally change the course in the last moment and pretend it is the logical path to follow.

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Permalink Reply by Pedro J. Molina on December 1, 2009 at 9:05pm

Ceyhun Ciper bitter-acid comments about Oslo MGrammar in the Microsoft SQL Modeling Forum.

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Permalink Reply by Vlad VARNICA on December 2, 2009 at 12:49pm

I think that MDD should be developed by smaller companies and if it is successful then Microsoft would certainly acquire few of them.
It is not really a bad decision and let full of opportunities for smaller vendors.
If big companies are competing on niche markets then it is unfair !!

I have found the following niche market definition which is really good:
A niche market is a focused targetable segment of a market. A business that is focused on a niche market is usually offering a product or service that is not being addressed by mainstream providers. In other words a niche market is a narrowly defined segment of potential customers. Niche markets are typically ignored by large businesses because the market is too small to be interesting or to make their economies of scale effective. Niche markets are therefore ideal for small, specialised businesses. That is because these small specialised businesses can generally charge a premium or enjoy the benefit of little (or even no) competition..........

The only real problem I see is that DSL and MDD are still niche markets and could never emerge !!

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Permalink Reply by Rui Curado on December 2, 2009 at 2:19pm

"The only real problem I see is that DSL and MDD are still niche markets and could never emerge !!"

I guess it all comes down to tools. Would UML be so widespread if there weren't tools like EclipseUML? ;-)

Projects like Xtext and MPS are also taking DSL's out of their niche.

So we need better and easier DSL and MDD tools if we want these approaches to be accessible to the wide developer audience. This is the first hurdle. The second one is to put the average developer in a "modeling state".

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Permalink Reply by Pedro J. Molina on December 2, 2009 at 2:48pm

Vlad: today, MDD can be considered as a niche market if you take in account the number of practitioners and projects.

However, MDD has the potential to be the next revolution in software development: faster and with more quality.

Specially, if you consider the numbers predicted by Jean Bézivin: The impossible equation. I think this step is unavoidable.

So, I agree with Rui: with better MDD tools we will get enough critical mass to make the parading change possible.

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Permalink Reply by Vlad VARNICA on December 2, 2009 at 5:12pm

I agree there is a need for MDD in 2015 but with the current credit crunch how many companies will still be alive in 5 years ?
ISV needs to be profitable now in order to survive. Don't forget that we don't get any financial helps from investors (e.g. modeling is not interesting anymore capital ventures) or governement (e.g. no more research budgets for software modeling).

Who will invest ? I will certainly not invest our few cash left today in a new DSL+MDD project which could only be profitable in 2015 !!

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