What project leaders need to know about Model Driven Development: A paradigm shift in software

Abstract

Model-Driven Development (MDD) represents a paradigm shift in software development. But MDD is not yet widely used within the Aerospace industry. Because of the familiarity of many in the industry with the MATLAB/Simulink tool, there is often miscommunication or misunderstanding over the expression "software modeling" that may be hindering the leveraging of MDD tools and techniques.When a listener that is familiar with MATLAB/Simulink is involved in a discussion about software modeling, the listener sometimes makes the mistake of assuming that the limitations of MATLAB/Simulink are also limitations of MDD. And as a result, MDD is quickly dismissed based on the characteristics of MATLAB/Simulink, rather than being considered on its own merits. This can lead to costly mistakes in terms of understanding and planning for the evolving state-of-the-art in software development.This paper starts with a discussion of paradigms, and gives a dramatic example that illustrates the importance of thinking about the future and being aware of paradigm shifts. Then we compare and contrast MDD tools with MATLAB/Simulink; they are both modeling tools but with different capabilities and limitations. We then put MDD and MATLAB/Simulink tools into context by discussing how MATLAB/Simulink has been used on past missions, and discuss how MATLAB/Simulink and MDD tools are likely to be used in parallel on future missions. 1 2