industrial experiences on domain-specific modeling
DESCRIPTION
Domain-Specific Modeling (DSM) enables raising the level of abstraction close to the problem domain yet generating production code from the models. These slides describe industrial experiences on DSM in four different domains: home automation, military radio, touch screen device and sports computer applications.TRANSCRIPT
Industrial Experiences on Domain-Specific Modeling
Contents
Domain-Specific Modeling Languages: Introduction
Review of industry cases
– Touch screen
– Home automation control
– Sports computer
– Military radio
Summary and discussion
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4,5 56 6
40
0
5
10
15
20
25
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Number of new product
features implemented in a given time (productivity proportional to Assembler)
A rise in productivity is overdue
"The entire history of software engineering is that of the rise in levels of abstraction"
New general-purpose programming languages have not increased productivity
Abstraction of development can be raised above current level...
... without losing control or accepting substandard results
*Software Productivity Research & Capers Jones, 2002
What data is available behind the statements* like:
"5-fold productivity increase when compared to standard development methods"
"The quality of the generated code is clearly better, simply because the modeling language rules out errors"
"The DSM solution makes development significantly faster and easier than the old manual coding practices"
* source: www.metacase.com/cases/
Four cases in more detail
Touch screen device (Panasonic)
Home automation (Ouman)
Sports computer (Polar Electro)
Military radio (Elektrobit)
Case 1: Panasonic’s touch screen devices (Safa, 2007)
Home automation solution installed by construction firms
Features for controlled
– Lights
– Heating
– Air-conditioning
– Electricity
– Alarms
• Burglar
• Gas
• Smoke
– Reporting (energy saving)
Evaluation method
Compare DSM to current manual coding practice
Two evaluation methods
1. Implemented an existing product with DSM
2. Implemented the existing features to a different target platform
• The same models, a new generator
Tool-chains covering: – Generate
– Compile
– Upload
– Boot
– Run
Generators for: – PC simulation
– Touch screen
– Microcontroller
Measuring development time
Build the same application with both approaches
– Measure the time used
Results:
– DSM is 425% faster
Implemented the same product to a new platform
– 3 days for generator development
– 0 days for modeling
Return on investment: Panasonic
DSM solution developed in 15 days
Product development with:
– the current approach: 17 days
– DSM: 4 days
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
DSM
Coding
Days
Creating DSM solution
Product 1
Product 2
Product 3
Product 4
Product 5
Case 2: Home automation (Puolitaival, 2011)
Home automation, remote control via mobile phone Ouman manufactures home automation systems
Products are focused mainly on temperature control with many different heating systems
SMS interface for remote control
A language for specifying remote control applications
One model for Ouman EH-60 product remote controller
0 5 10 15 20
DSM
"past"
Days
Creating DSM solution
Product 1
Product 2
Product 3
Product 4
Product 5
Return on investment
DSM solution developed: 2 weeks
Product development: 1-2 days – Comparison to earlier development effort not possible since
outsourced • Cost was 6 figure number
DSM allows a non-programmer to develop applications
Case 3: Polar’s Sport computers
Heart rate measuring, analysis and visualization Calorie calculation, like current, cumulative, expenditure rate, active time Speed: current, average, maximum Distance, based on interval, trip, recovery Altimeter, vertical speed, altitude alarms, slope counter, graphical trend Cycling information like pedaling rate and cycling power Barometer, pressure drop alarm, graphical trend Exercise diaries Sensor connectivity (heart rate, speed, cadence, power, GPS) Compass, Temperature, Odometer, Logbooks, etc.
About the product development (Kärnä et al. 2009)
Polar focused on UI application development
– Single largest piece of software
• Takes 40-50% of the development time
– Typically always vary among products
Software development is constrained by limited resources:
– Memory, processor speed and battery life
Polar created the needed languages and generators internally
Sample of UI application design
Evaluation methods
Compare the use of DSM and the current practice
Two research methods
– Laboratory study
• 6 current developers, 6 implementations
• Implement a small, typical feature
– Pilot project
• Implement large portion of a whole product
• 1 person
Results of the studies
Laboratory study
– Measuring time: at least 750% faster
– Asking opinions: results (scale 1-5, 5 best):
Pilot
– Measuring time: >900% faster
Return on investment: Polar
DSM solution developed in 60 hours
Product development with:
– the current approach: 23 days
– DSM: 2,3 days
Case 4: Military radio (Puolitaival et al., 2011)
EB Tough VoIP Features
Tough VoIP is a wired phone that is using UDP/IP network for connection
Manufacturer: Elektrobit
Main features:
– Easy configuration
– Point-to-Point call
– All call
– War-proof device
Testing problem
ETC...
EB Test Tool Platform + OpenTTCN tester
Two language solution
Model Model
MBT
TTCN-3 TTCN-3
Modeling one test case
Modeling a test logic
Model-Based Testing
generates multiple test
cases
Generating one test case
Executing the test case
Executing test cases
Model example 1: test case
Model example 2: test logic
0 5 10 15 20
DSM
Coding
Days
Creating DSM solution
Test suite 1
Test suite 2
Test suite 3
Test suite 4
Test suite 5
Return on investment: Elektrobit
About 10 times faster with modeling
Set-up time estimation: – 2 weeks for the first version, +1 week to make it better
Other benefits: – Test coverage dramatically increase
– Easy test configuration
Economics of DSM
Repetition:
– # of product variants
– # of similar features
– # of developers
– ”outsourcing” to domain experts
Investment:
– Effort needed to implement DSLs
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
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100
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Repetition
CostCurrent DSM
DSM Solution Development Time
Man days
Concepts Symbols
Generators Rules 1 2 3 4
Steps for implementing DSM
Summary
Domain-Specific Modeling languages provide:
– Better productivity
– Quality improvements
– Easier use and introduction of new developers
MetaEdit+ makes moving to DSLs feasible
– Expert can focus on language design, not on creating tooling
– Models update and work when languages changes
Creation of languages does not take much time!
More details on the cases
Kelly, S., Tolvanen, J.-P., Domain-Specific Modeling: Enabling Full Code Generation, Wiley, 2008. http://dsmbook.com
Kärnä, J., et al. Evaluating the Use of Domain-Specific Modeling in Practice, Proceedings of the 9th Workshop on Domain-Specific Modeling, HSE Print, B-108, 2009.
Puolitaival, O.-P., Home Automation DSL case, Code Generation Conference, 2011
Puolitaival, O.-P., Kanstren, T., Rytky, V.-P., Saarela, A., Utilizing Domain-Specific Modeling for Software Testing, Proceedings of VALID, October 2011
Safa, L., The Making Of User-Interface Designer, A Proprietary DSM Tool, Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Domain-Specific Modeling, Technical Reports, TR-38, University of Jyväskylä, 2007
For more cases, customer stories, testimonials visit www.metacase.com
Thank You!