We start the comparison by illustrating possible development processes, ?¬?rst
based on a general-purpose modeling language and then based on a domain-speci?¬?c
modeling language. UML is a well known modeling language created to specify
almost any software system. As it is intended to be universal and general-purpose
according to its authors (Rumbaugh et al., 1999), Q3 it can be expected to ?¬?t our task of
developing the conference registration application. The domain-speci?¬?c language is
obviously made for developing mobile applications.
1.3.1 UML Usage Scenario
Use of UML and other code-oriented approaches normally involves an initial
modeling stage followed by manual coding to implement the application functionality.
Design models either stay totally separate from the implementation or are
used to produce parts of the code, such as the class skeletons. The generated code is
then modi?¬?ed and extended by ?¬?lling in the missing parts that could not be
generated from UML models. At the end of the development phase, most of the
models made will be thrown away as they no longer specify what was actually
AN EXAMPLE: MODELING WITH A GENERAL-PURPOSE LANGUAGE 7
developed while programming the application. The cost of updating these models is
too high as there is no automation available.
Modeling Application Structure Let??™s look at this scenario in more detail
using our conference registration example.
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