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The aim of this paper is a brief introduction to MDA technology and a summary / comparison to the approachments to MDA of AndroMDA and Acceleo, intending to be a practical and understandable summary Introduction Model-driven architecture (MDA) is a software design approach for the development of software systems. It provides a set of guidelines for the structuring of specifications, which are expressed as models. It was launched by the Object Management Group (OMG) in 2001 The Model-Driven Architecture approach defines system functionality using a platform-independent model (PIM) using an appropriate domain-specific language (DSL). One of the main aims of the MDA is to separate design from architecture. As the concepts and technologies used to realize designs and the concepts and technologies used to realize architectures have changed at their own pace, decoupling them allows system developers to choose from the best and most fitting in both domains. The design addresses the functional (use case) requirements while architecture provides the infrastructure through which non-functional requirements like scalability, reliability and performance are realized. MDA envisages that the platform independent model (PIM), which represents a conceptual design realizing the functional requirements, will survive changes in realization technologies and software architectures.

Data, Context and Interaction (DCI) is a paradigm used in computer software to program systems of communicating objects. Its goals are: To improve the readability of object-oriented code by giving system behavior first-class status; To cleanly separate code for rapidly changing system behavior (what the system does) from code for slowly changing domain knowledge (what the system is), instead of combining both in one class interface; To help software developers reason about system-level state and behavior instead of only object state and behavior; To support an object style of thinking that is close to peoples' mental models, rather than the class style of thinking that overshadowed object thinking early in the history of object-oriented programming languages. The paradigm separates the domain model (Data) from Use cases (Context) and Roles that objects play (Interaction). DCI is complementary to Model-view-controller (MVC). MVC as a pattern language is still used to separate the data and its processing from presentation. DCI was invented by Trygve Reenskaug, also the inventor of MVC. The current formulation of DCI is mostly the work of Reenskaug and James O. Coplien.

The Whole Platform is an open source technology for engineering the production of software. Based on the idea that programming is an activity concerning the development of domain languages, the Whole Platform provides an Eclipse-based Language Workbench

"Businesses involve a lot of functions and in any company, large or small, dedicated departments handle the functions assigned to them. This compartmentalization ensures that experts in the respective domain handle things efficiently. But as the company grows there arises a situation when too much time and resources are wasted when each of the departments carry out functions that are redundant. For example, it is too expensive when both the purchase team and the warehouse management team maintain the same list of products but each in their own format. That may be a tiny part of how Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) can help you avoid redundancies to run an efficient business. Based on the size of the company and requirements, ERP packages are available from a few thousand to millions of dollars. Today we'll check out how to set up Openbravo, a modern and professionally backed open source ERP that is cost effective to acquire, operate and upgrade."

Emfatic is a text editor supporting navigation, editing, and conversion of Ecore models, using a compact and human-readable syntax similar to Java. The EPLed Emfatic now hosted at EMFT extends the Feb 2005 alphaworks release with support for EMF Generics, folding, "red squigglies", an EMF Type Hierarchy, hyperlinks, AutoEdits, and the possibility to define templates to speed up document creation, among other usability features. The best way to gain hands-on experience with Emfatic is to right-click on any .ecore file and choose Generate Emfatic source, a similar converter works in the opposite direction. Online help is also available. Emfatic itself builds upon Gymnast, a framework for jumpstarting text editors for custom Domain Specific Languages. Documentation on how to extend Emfatic, as well as on using Gymnast, can be found in this technical report.

Mod4j (Modeling for Java) is an open source DSL-based environment for developing administrative enterprise applications. It uses a collection of DSL's to model different parts of the architecture, combined with manually written code. Currently Mod4j consists of four DSLs: the Business Domain DSL, Service DSL, Data Contract DSL and Presentation DSL. The modeling environment is seamlessly integrated into the Eclipse IDE which gives the developers one environment where they can easily switch back- and forth between models and code. The different DSL?s used in Mod4j can be used independently, but if they are used in collaboration they will be fully validated with each other. Apart from integration in the Eclipse IDE, Mod4j also supports the use of Maven. That is, using the DSL models as the source, the complete code generation process can be run automatically on a build server without the need for Eclipse. The Mod4j DSLs and the corresponding code generators are based on a reference architecture. This allows developers to model various aspects of the application and generate code that strictly follows this reference architecture. The reference architecture is described in a separate document. For a good understanding of the generated code it is useful to read this document.

Xtext - Language Development Framework With Xtext you can easily create your own programming languages and domain-specific languages (DSLs). The framework supports the development of language infrastructures including compilers and interpreters as well as full blown Eclipse-based IDE integration. While Xtext equips you with a set of sensible defaults, you can tweak every single aspect of your language with Xtext's powerful APIs. A comprehensive documentation as well as the vivid community will help you getting started in no time. And if that is not enough you can buy trainings, consulting or support contracts delivered directly by the committers.

"Apache Camel is a powerful open source integration framework based on known Enterprise Integration Patterns with powerful Bean Integration. Camel lets you create the Enterprise Integration Patterns to implement routing and mediation rules in either a Java based Domain Specific Language (or Fluent API), via Spring based Xml Configuration files or via the Scala DSL. This means you get smart completion of routing rules in your IDE whether in your Java, Scala or XML editor. Apache Camel uses URIs so that it can easily work directly with any kind of Transport or messaging model such as HTTP, ActiveMQ, JMS, JBI, SCA, MINA or CXF Bus API together with working with pluggable Data Format options. Apache Camel is a small library which has minimal dependencies for easy embedding in any Java application. Apache Camel lets you work with the same API regardless which kind of Transport used, so learn the API once and you will be able to interact with all the Components that is provided out-of-the-box. Apache Camel has powerful Bean Binding and integrated seamless with popular frameworks such as Spring and Guice. Apache Camel has extensive Testing support allowing you to easily unit test your routes. Apache Camel can be used as a routing and mediation engine for the following projects: * Apache ServiceMix which is the most popular and powerful distributed open source ESB and JBI container * Apache ActiveMQ which is the most popular and powerful open source message broker * Apache CXF which is a smart web services suite (JAX-WS) * Apache MINA a networking framework"

Eclipse provides a modeling infrastructure evolving around the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) for which offering graphical representations and editing possibilities is essential. Graphiti is an Eclipse-based graphics framework that enables easy development of state-of-the-art diagram editors for domain models.

"red-open is a sister project of redView. red-open is providing a Software Factory to transform models and generate code. red-open uses Eclipse Modeling (MWE, Xpand, Xtend to transform Domain Models (EMF, UML, XSD, Xtext) into other models like redView View Models. red-open also generates code and artifacts to generate RCP Prototyping apps, SWT Views, MockUp, Riena Navigation Assembly... "

"Short screencasts that outlines features of applause, a domain-specific language (DSL) and code generator to produce native apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. You can find this open-source project at code.google.com/​p/​applause"

Each node in a Jackrabbit workspace tree has a node type that defines the child nodes and properties it may (or must) have. Developers can use node types to define a custom content model for their application domain and have Jackrabbit enforce the constraints of that model at the repository level.

"OpenXava is a tool for Rapid Java Web Development, well-suited for business and database oriented applications. Write simple domain classes with Java or Groovy, and get an AJAX application ready for production. Since v4.2 OpenXava also produces iPad Web applications that behaves and looks like iPad native applications."

" Xtext has been released as a part of the Eclipse Galileo release train on June 24th, 2009. Xtext is a framework for building DLSs (domain specific languages). In fact, it can be seen as a DSL for defining DSLs. In this article, we will develop a small DSL for defining entities."

"Essential is a project to create a workbench for applying Model Driven Development (MDD). The workbench allows to experiment with models, metamodels, templates and transformations in an integrated environment. The main focus is to provide a declarative environment oriented to prototyping and evolving custom DSL and MDD tools in a quick and clean way. Motivation for a new tool Essential.Meta. DSL for Metamodelling Modelling with Essential StringTemplate, the template engine"

"EMF URI handler implementation that can persist EMF object instances to MongoDB. "

" Over the past few years, and actually the past year, a lot of new initiatives have surfaced in the area of creating so called language workbenches - aiming at facilitating the definition and use of DSLs and code generation. We believe each of these has its own strengths and weaknesses, and none is 'the best' for every purpose. Still, a lot of people keep asking for the best workbench. Based on that, we are now planning to have a Language Workbench Competition, in which we will be able to compare the strengths and weaknesses of these workbenches based on solutions for a predefined set of cases. Keep an eye on this page for more details in the coming, as the cases are being defined and the possibilities of co-hosting this initative at Code Generation 2011 in Cambridge are being investigated."