Another tool launched in public beta this week is AtomWeaver developed by Rui Curado. AtomWeaver is a full implementation of ABSE (Atom-based Software Engineering) . Rui's own description of the system is the following:

ABSE is a pragmatic model-drivel software development method. Most similar current approach is DSM (Domain-Specific Modeling) as described by Kelly/Tolvanen. Unlike previous attempts at modeling like UML and MDA, ABSE follows a "not perfect world" philosophy where you can mix generated and custom code right on your models. It also introduces the "light model" concept, where most of your models might be made of custom code. An ABSE model is a tree, made up of "Atoms". The host system will "execute" the tree to obtain the intended generated artifacts.


AtomWeaver is a "meta-IDE" (not tailored for a specific platform or language) that implements ABSE. Unlike other systems like Eclipse, AtomWeaver is lean (5Mb zip file) and self-contained (one package). A single approach to modeling: There aren't 120 overlaping ways to do modeling like in Eclipse. I hope this focus will help on fostering wide MDSD adoption. AtomWeaver can easily be put alongside your current development setup. For instance, I am currently using it alongside VS 2008: AtomWeaver models and generates the full project, and VS 2008 compiles and debugs.

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