While modelling is recognized as an efficient means for reducing development costs by, among others, early detection of functional mismatches and problems in models, in practice one observes that modelling, with UML especially, is a non-trivial task. The gap between, on the one hand, developers’ know-how and ways of thinking and constructing software systems, and, on the other hand, modelling, remains important. In such a context, code generation often fails to meet developers’ expectations since they typically have to adjust and tailor generated code to the constraints of their deployment environment. The Blu Age™ software factory removes all code adjustment / tailoring tasks with a “pure” 100% MDA approach. Deployment environment constraints (e.g. .NET or a J2EE server version, a specific presentation technology like Struts, or JSF, etc.) are taken into account by technical models that are orthogonal to business models.

This tutorial revisits the industry experience and the forthcoming challenges of UML and MDA and shows, through a didactic example, how to fully design an application, focusing on software quality and time-to-market requirements which are first-class concerns in Blu Age™.