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

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 ldquosoftware modelingrdquo 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.