Hurtling back from Paris
I’m currently hurtling through the French countryside at some significant fraction of the speed of sound on the Eurostar train from Paris to London. I’m returning from giving a keynote talk at Model Driven Day. I spoke about UML – Past, Present and Future. Despite having to put up with my English – my French is ok for ordering a sandwich, but wholly insufficient for conveying the ironies needed for talking about UML - the audience seemed receptive and what feedback I received was good.
I met several old friends, including Jean Bézivin and Philippe Desfray. Many people introduced themselves to me and wanted to talk about model-driven topics. Several of them were keen users of DSL Tools and asked about our future plans. Some were UML users.
I asked everybody I spoke to what they really value in model driven development tools. These are some of the key points I got from the replies:
- Being able to integrate models tightly with the code
- Being able to integrate models in different domains, e.g. business models and UML models
- Being able to reuse good ideas from UML in custom DSLs without having to deal with the whole thing
- Being able to describe and validate system architectures
It was a very informative and enjoyable day.