A software cost model to assess productivity impact of a model-driven technique in developing domain-specific design tools

Abstract

Programming languages have evolved through the course of research from machine dependent to high-level "platform-independent" languages. This shift towards abstraction aims to reduce the effort and time required by developers to create software services. It is also a strong indicator of reduced development costs and a direct measure of a positive impact on software productivity. Current trends in software engineering attempt to raise further the abstraction level by introducing modelling languages as the key components of the development process. In particular, modelling languages support the design of software services in the form of domain models. These models become the main development artefacts, which are then transformed using code generators to the required implementation. The major predicament with model-driven techniques is the complexity imposed when manually developing the domain-specific design tools used to define models. Another issue is the difficulty faced in integrating these design tools with model validation tools and code generators. In this chapter a model-driven technique and its supporting model-driven environment are presented, both of which are imperative in automating the development of design tools and achieving tools integration to improve software productivity. A formal parametric model is also proposed that allows evaluating the productivity impact in generating and rapidly integrating design tools. The evaluation is performed on the basis of a prototype domain-specific design tool. © 2011, IGI Global.