The UML (and related technologies like MDA and OCL) will go down in history as one of the most "promising" technologies that in fact delivered next to nothing.

I'm looking forward to the maturation of software factories.

DSL's are more like it I think. One thing that went wrong with UML is/was that it's 'a' domain specific language but was used as 'the' domain specific language. It's a step too far when you're designing your class model, IMHO. It already talks about details you only find out later on, after you've defined everything more abstract.

I agree, and also I refuse to say "The UML" because it sounds pretentious. So I just say "UML". I also eat fried chicken with my hands.

(...and he roars into off-topicicity - look it up, it's word...)

I have some friends who disagree with my practice of saying the letters of every acronym, rather than saying the contraction phonetically.

For instance, I say "S-Q-L" rather than "seequel", "U-M-L" rather than "oommul", and, yes, I say "what you see is what you get", rather than the childish-sounding "wizzywig", i.e., WYSIWYG.

I counter by noting that nobody says "ehbbm" rather than "I-B-M", but they get me back by pointing out that I do mix the two, with "M-S-daughs" instead of "M-S-D-O-S", and, of course, "L-L-B-L-gen" rather than "L-L-B-L-G-E-N".

Recently I worked on a project called "CIPS", where the "C" what a contraction for "C4", which was a contraction of a four letter military term. If you expanded all the acronyms, the name "CIPS", instead of being four letters, was actually more than a dozen. Stop the madness!

O-K, that's enough of that...

Now. What the h*ll is DSL?

DSL = domain specific language. For vs.net 2005, MS is building a meta-framework wherein you can define your own object model, your own designer for your objects/relations etc. and code generator. It's very very cool, and comes medio 2006. See: http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/teamsystem/workshop/dsltools/default.aspx

I also say S-Q-L and also S-Q-L Server, rather than Sequal-Server or sequal.

Otis wrote:

I also say S-Q-L and also S-Q-L Server, rather than Sequal-Server or sequal.

You're a good man.

Otis wrote:

DSL = domain specific language. For vs.net 2005, MS is building a meta-framework wherein you can define your own object model, your own designer for your objects/relations etc. and code generator. It's very very cool, and comes medio 2006. See: http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/teamsystem/workshop/dsltools/default.aspx

VERY cool. Might be the next paradigm (a VERY cool word) in programming. I'm reading Software Factories:

book on amazon

Most examples in java, but still a good read.

Well, it's of course something old in a new shiny package, but nevertheless, it is very promissing . I heard the term 'software factories' as well, though I'm not familiar with the definition, although I have the feeling it's about generators .

It was a pleasant surprise when I saw the demo at Teched 2 weeks ago. Finally Microsoft had some people working on something which was solely targeted at being productive, instead of being busy. It was still not ready for primetime, but they'll get there I'm sure Now let's hope they won't pull it at the last minute for some marketing reason.