Software Factories: Assembling Applications with Patterns, Models, Frameworks, and Tools

By Steve CookStuart KentJack Greenfield, et al.

Book Overview

The architects of the Software Factories method provide a detailed look at this faster, less expensive, and more reliable approach to application development. Software Factories significantly increase the level of automation in application development at medium to large companies, applying the time tested pattern of using visual languages to enable rapid assembly and configuration of framework based components.Unlike other approaches to Model Driven Development (MDD), such as Model Driven Architecture (MDA) from the Object Management Group (OMG), Software Factories do not use the Unified Modeling Language (UML), a general purpose modeling language designed for models used as documentation. They go beyond models as documentation, using models based on highly tuned Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) and the Extensible Markup Language (XML) as source artifacts, to capture life cycle metadata, and to support high fidelity model transformation, code generation and other forms of automation. Building business applications is currently an extremely labor-intensive process that relies on a limited pool of highly talented developers. As global demand for software exceeds the capacity of this labor pool, current software development methods will be replaced by automated methods, meaning cheaper, faster, and more reliable application development. Wiley Computer Publishing has teamed with industry experts Jack Greenfield and Keith Short, both architects in the Enterprise Frameworks and Tools group at Microsoft, and leading authorities on Model Driven Development (MDD), to help technical professionals understand how business application development is changing. With two chapters on Domain Specific Language (DSL) development by contributors Steve Cook and Stuart Kent, they take an in-depth look at challenges facing developers using current methods and practices, and critical innovations that can help with these challenges, such as Pattern Automation, Generative Programming, Software Product Lines, Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP), Component Based Development (CBD), Service Oriented Architectures (SOA), Service Orchestration and Web Service Integration. They then propose the Software Factories method, which has the potential to significantly change software development practice, by reducing the cost of building reusable assets, such as patterns, languages, frameworks and tools, for specific problem domains, and then applying them to accelerate the assembly of applications in those domains. After introducing Software Factories, the book describes these key enabling technologies in depth, and shows how they can be integrated and applied to support a form of Rapid Application Development (RAD). It then provides a detailed example of a working Software Factory and answers Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Readers will gain a better understanding of these technologies, and will learn how to apply them to implement Software Factories within their own organizations.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471202843
• ISBN13: 9780471202844
• Release Date: September 2004
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 666 Pages
• Weight: 2.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 7.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Exceptional reasoning on software construction

Wow! I bought this book a long time ago and it lived on my "bibliophile" stack of bought but unread gems. It's a stunning book if you seek to understand the decomposition of complexity in modern software applications and the complex deployment architectures they work in. My only concern is the book is not an engineering book - there are no mathematical models of scale and performance for distributed decompositions. It has...

Factories are the future

This book provided insightful coverage of what I think is a fascinating topic. THe author organizes the material in a logical manner making it easy to transition from one topic to another. I would have liked more illustrations, but what was supplied was enough for me to understand everything. Very recommended!

detailed breakdown of product line engineering

This is an awesome book for an overview of the software development industry practices. It includes a detailed breakdown of product line engineering, as well as a ton of other great information. VSTS 2005 missed the mark on Software Architecting Tools, and only includes System Architecting tools. With my own MSDN subscription I opted for the Developer version instead of the Architect version because of this. Microsoft...

The "state of the art" in software engineering

This book in my mind represents the state of the art in software engineering today. The book is based upon the concept of building families of similar, but distinct products, which have been around for years in other engineering disciplines such as civil, mechanical and electronics engineering. These concepts promote the systematic reuse of like components and factored out variable components for customization in order to...

Scholarly and sophisticated

The authors present a massive and sophisticated approach to understanding and integrating patterns, models and frameworks into a project. The tone is scholarly, with many references to important previous papers and texts. The book is targeted at developers and senior programmers. Much of it deals with the different levels of abstraction, and how you move between these. So that if you have designed a project using patterns,...