Blog overview 2008

End of the year, time for a lookback. I wish you all the best for 2009 and I hope to see you again next year for some interesting discussions.

Below you can find the top 10 posts (based on traffic) of this year and a full blog summary shortly describing each post of 2008.

Top 10 posts

According to the stats these are the top
ten posts on my blog:

• MDA, Model Driven
  Architecture, basic concepts
• Model
  Driven Engineering
• Architecture,
  a definition (not from this year, but still popular)
• Architecture
  requirements for Service-Oriented Business Applications
• Combining
  general purpose languages and domain specific languages for Model Driven
  Engineering 
• SOA
  and Human Interaction (not from this year, but still popular)
• MDA
  and Model Transformation 
• OSGi
  quick start 
• SOA
  and Service Identification (not from this year, but still popular)

I just want to give a recent post special
attention because it’s a first attempt to bridge my interest in both enterprise
architecture and model driven engineering: The
place of Architecture in Model-Driven Engineering.

By the way, I didn’t take the time of
publishing into account when looking at the statistics. So, articles posted
more recently are less likely to show up in the top 10, unless they are very
popular.

Blog summary for 2008

January

• Model
  Driven Architecture (MDA) special interest group on LinkedIn: I started a
  special interest group for MDA on LinkedIn. Until now over 1500 members have
  joined this group. You can still join
  today!
• MDA, Model Driven
  Architecture, basic concepts: post explaining the basic concepts of MDA as
  defined by the OMG.
• SOA Approach to Integration: book
  review.

February

• MDA
  and Model Transformation: overview of model transformation approaches and a
  way to classify them.

March

• Model
  Driven Engineering: post introducing Model Driven Engineering (MDE) as a
  broader concept as MDA. James Taylor had a nice follow-up
  article explaining how MDE shouldn’t only focus on developer productivity, because
  the model that should drive the engineering is a business model, not a
  technical one.

April

• Spring
  time…: changed the whole appearance of my blog. If you have suggestions for
  improvement please feel free to contact me.
• Combining
  general purpose languages and domain specific languages for Model Driven
  Engineering: this article explains the notion of model, metamodel, and
  modeling language. It also shows how ontological and linguistic metamodeling
  can be combined for defining DSLs (Domain-Specific Languages). This is shown
  with an example process modeling DSL. InfoQ picked up the article with this summary.

May

• Architecture
  requirements for Service-Oriented Business Applications: primer on
  Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). The first part of the article explains the
  project types to execute when moving to a SOA and it argues why a SOA is needed
  if you want to integrate processes. The second part goes into detail about
  service-oriented development (programming model, service types, implementation
  and standards). Recently Nick Malik recommended the article in this
  blog post, thanks Nick!
• Model
  Driven Experience: announcing the first Dutch symposium on Model Driven
  Development practices. I’m looking forward to the 2009 edition!

June

• Quality
  in Model-Driven SOBA development: article explaining how an MDE approach
  for Service-Oriented Business Applications (SOBA) asks for specific approaches
  to ensure the quality of the resulting system. Model validation, model
  checking, and model-based testing are described.
• MDA
  MDD MDE MDSD MDSE: help!: just a fun post on the confusion in MD*
  abbreviations.

July

• OSGi
  quick start: just as the title says, a quick start if you want to start
  with OSGi.
• SOA
  Ontology: my comments on SOA Ontology Draft 2.0 published that day by The
  Open Group. InfoQ included the post in their news item on
  this draft.
• 8
  Reasons Why Model-Driven Approaches (will) Fail: post announcing my article (with
  the same title) on InfoQ. The article was introduced on InfoQ by
  Jean-Jacques Dubray in this news item.

August

• DSL
  and MDE, necessary assets for Model-Driven approaches: article explaining
  what Domain-Specific Languages are, why you should use them, and how they can
  should be combined with MDE.
• DSL
  in the context of UML and GPL: my reaction on a post of Steven Kelly, which
  was a reaction on a post of Cameron Skinner explaining Microsofts view on DSLs
  and UML. This post is my contribution to  the DSL vs UML debate. InfoQ picked
  up the discussion with this
  item.

September

• The
  structure of Domain-Specific Languages: post explaining how the structure
  of DSLs can differ in two different ways. An intermediate DSL can be a way to
  handle the complexity of using multiple DSLs with different structures.
• MoDELS
  ’08: post announcing the MoDELS ’08 conference.

October

Posts covering the MoDELS ’08 conference:

• MoDELS
  ’08: MDE is a hot topic
• MoDELS
  ’08: Abstraction, the neglected side of modeling
• MoDELS
  ’08: Domain-Specific Modeling
• MoDELS
  ’08: Composition and Analysis of Behavorial Models 
• MoDELS
  ’08: The objects and Arrows of Computational Design 
• MoDELS
  ’08: Metamodeling and Modularity 
• MoDELS’08:
  Panel discussion on the past & future of MDD

November

• Domain-Specific
  Modeling needs multi-models: article explaining the concept ‘multi-model’.
  It is a more detailed explanation of the combination of MDE with DSLs.
• The
  place of Architecture in Model-Driven Engineering: a first attempt to
  bridge my interest in both enterprise architecture and model driven
  engineering. This article explains what role architecture plays (or can play)
  in MDE.

December

• If
  Programming Languages were <T>: just a referrer to a fun post on the
  comparison of programming languages with religions, cars, boats, women,
  girlfriends, subcultures, mixed drinks, music, rock bands, art, languages, and
  Christmas songs.
• And of course this post.