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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Breaking News - Operating Systems
& Middleware:
Model-Driven Architecture Approach
Increases Productivity
The Middleware Company, a leading knowledge network for middleware
professionals, announced the results of its productivity research on
developers maintaining or enhancing a J2EE application using Model-Driven
Architecture (MDA) and code-centric approaches. The research found that MDA
increases maintenance productivity by 37 percent over a traditional,
code-centric approach. An earlier study conducted in 2003 showed that MDA
increases the productivity of creating new J2EE applications by 35
percent.
"Based on the results of this study, we encourage organizations wishing to
improve their developer productivity to evaluate MDA-based development tools,"
said Tyler Jewell, COO at The Middleware Company, which has relationships with
350,000 developers through TheServerSide Communities and provides the most
in-depth technical research on middleware technology available in the
industry.
The study, which measured the effect of a model-driven, pattern-based
development approach on J2EE application maintainability, consisted of two
highly skilled development teams that performed a set of typical but diverse
enhancements to an existing application. One team used an MDA-based tool,
Compuware OptimalJ, while the other used a traditional enterprise-caliber
integrated development environment. MDA proved particularly well suited for
enterprise-class applications as it was found that productivity benefits
increased with the complexity of applications and data structures. MDA was
also very successful in handling integration technologies such as JMS, Web
services and J2CA.
Enhancements were based on an expert-reviewed specification. To create a
level
playing field, the enhancements that both teams performed were outlined in a
specification created with the help of an independent, expert review panel.
The panel included representatives from leading industry analyst firms such as
META Group and Ovum as well as key influencers in the Java development
arena.
"The team using an MDA approach completed five enhancements in 165 hours
versus the 260 hours it took with a traditional one," said Will Edwards, vice
president of research and practice management at The Middleware Company. "Our
results show MDA's ability to reduce coding time and simplify design
decisions. The Middleware Company clearly finds Model-Driven Architecture to
be a significant and important technology for improving application time to
market."
MDA is a development approach in which an abstract representation of a
system
serves as a blueprint to encapsulate the application design and generate
implementation code. MDA differs from other modeling approaches in several
ways: it is standardized, separates the business model from specifics of the
J2EE platform, embodies J2EE best practices and can be customized by the
architect. Using this approach significantly reduces the amount of
infrastructure code developers write manually while still producing
architecturally high-quality code.
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