Marco Brambilla and Stefano Butti have launched an initiative to make WebML a (OMG) standard modeling language for web applications (especially regarding the user interaction aspects).
IMHO, UML is good to model many things but clearly misses the point when it comes to model complex user interfaces and interactions. Attempts to use UML for this usually end up with complex profiles that are almost impossible to apply.
Therefore, to me having a standard modeling language for web applications is a great idea, specially because at least this time the standard would arrive AFTER the industrial practice has established a standard de facto and not before, as in other cases. And by standard de facto I don’t mean only WebML, I think most web modeling languages share a similar set of core concepts when it comes to define some aspects of the system (e.g. just compare navigation models by different vendors).
Therefore, YES to start this journey but welcome in it all the other vendors that would like to participate in it. In his reply to my comment, Marco already clarified that getting on board all interested vendors was part of the plan.
What do you think about the idea? I’d love to know your take on this!
FNR Pearl Chair. Head of the Software Engineering RDI Unit at LIST. Affiliate Professor at University of Luxembourg. More about me.
(via @PauGiner) I think the concepts used by UX community IN their diagrams should be incorporated TO the lang http://communicatingdesign.com/
Thanks Jordi for sharing this within your portal community.
@PauGiner: interesting comment: can we have a chat on how and what to integrate from the UX experience?
SOME TIME ago I remember the MDE web community explored the idea OF facilitating the interoperability BETWEEN different modeling languages:
Antonio Vallecillo, Nora Koch, Cristina Cachero, Sara Comai, Piero Fraternali, Irene Garrigós, Jaime Gómez, Gerti Kappel, Alexander Knapp, Maristella Matera, Santiago Meliá, Nathalie Moreno, Birgit Pröll, Thomas Reiter, Werner Retschitzegger, José Eduardo Rivera, Andrea Schauerhuber, Wieland Schwinger, Manuel Wimmer, Gefei Zhang: MDWEnet: A Practical Approach TO Achieving Interoperability OF Model-Driven Web Engineering Methods. MDWE 2007
Was there something that could reused FOR this standardization effort?
I think the outcome OF that joint activity consisted IN a very useful mapping BETWEEN the different approaches AND IN the definition OF a common basis (AND, LAST but NOT least, a deep reciprocal understanding).
Some concepts could be inspirational, although overall I would say that the outcome IS rather far FROM something useful FOR a formal standardization process.
Obviously, ANY contributions FROM ANY OF the involved approaches IS MORE than welcome.
Updated information on the process can be found here: http://blog.webratio.com/2011/07/04/webml-in-omg-%E2%80%93-step-2-%E2%80%93-working-at-a-rfp-document/