MDA guide(Note that I’m strictly referring to the MDA standard, not to model-driven engineering in general).

In 2003, the OMG published the MDA guide v1.0.1 describing the MDA framework, an “… an approach to using models in software development. MDA provides an approach for, and enables tools to be provided for: specifying a system independently of the platform that supports it, specifying platforms, choosing a particular platform for the system, and transforming the system specification into one for a particular platform.”

In fact, I believe this definition fell short. The idea was to support this initial MDA guide with a set of “MDA standard specifications” that would realize this framework. But so far, we have not really seen a set of MDA-compliant specifications for each of the MDA phases (CIM, PIM, PSM) proposed in the guide. So MDA remain more as a conceptual framework than a real a one (related to this, you may want to read as well: Anybody using both MDA platform-independent AND platform-specific models? ).

Some years later, in 2009, we echoed the ongoing work on a MDA Guide 2.0 (named “MDA foundation model) with the more ambitious goal of formalizing the MDA terms to provide a more precise definition of the semantics of concepts like models, transformations, … Note that in the own OMG’s MDA page it says (still today) that: “The MDA Guide, Version 1.0.1, just mentioned, defines the MDA. OMG members expect to replace this interim version with an update, based on the Foundation Model also just mentioned, around mid-2005. “. So, the draft I saw was already four years late.

And after four more years have passed, nothing has been officially published. Dear OMG, what’s going on? Did you realize that MDA was not a good idea? Weren’t you able to agree on a more precise definition of what MDA should be? Should we be worried because of something you discovered and are afraid to make public 🙂 ?

I think that after all the marketing effort you put behind the MDA brand (and trademark 🙂 ), we deserve an answer.

(Note: this posts reflects, on purpose, just the external view of the situation, I didn’t check with anybody from the OMG to get a more informed opinion from the inside. I will probably do but I wanted first to summarize a feeling that from what I’ve discussed with a few collagues is a shared feeling).

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