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Modeling Usage Low; Developers Confused About UML 2.0, MDA


By Alan Zeichick
July 15, 2002 — 
If your organization doesn't use the Unified Modeling Language, and if you're confused about the Model Driven Architecture, you're not alone.

While it seems that every major software tools vendor is promoting formal modeling and Object Management Group's MDA initiative, those concepts haven't taken hold within enterprise development shops and among development managers. In fact, only about one-third of developers recently surveyed said they use UML-and not a single respondent believes that code generated from models is generally production-ready.

The survey, conducted by BZ Research in late June, was completed by 226 individuals. BZ Research is a sister organization of SD Times. According to the results, 34 percent of developers presently use UML-based modeling for applications development; of that group, 2 percent said they use UML to model all applications, and 32 percent said that UML is used only for modeling some applications.

Fully 62 percent of respondents said that they didn't use UML, and 4 percent didn't know if it was in use.

The survey then asked those who did not currently use UML about their plans for adoption. More than half-54 percent-indicated no plans to use UML. However, 13 percent of those who do not currently use UML plan to begin using it within the next 12 months, and an equal number within the next 12 to 24 months. Another 10 percent said they plan to use UML sometime in the future, but that adoption is more than two years away.

Why don't those 62 percent of developers use UML? The largest number, 30 percent, said that they didn't see any benefit, while 25 percent said that their tools do not support UML. An almost equal number, 24 percent, said that UML-based modeling was too expensive to implement, while 17 percent said that it's too complex to use. Interestingly, 15 percent complained that the code generated by modeling tools isn't production-ready, while 13 percent said that UML is too complex to learn. Also, 23 percent of respondents said they had additional reasons for not adopting UML, and 15 percent said they didn't know why it wasn't used.

What about that production code? The survey asked only those who indicated some current use of UML-based modeling if, in their experience, the code generated from models and templates is generally production-ready. Not a single respondent said that the code was completely production-ready, and 59 percent said that it wasn't even close. However, 21 percent said that while the generated code is close to production-ready, it still requires some hand-coding. Another 20 percent said they didn't know. (They also were asked which of the nine UML diagrams they used.)

Finally, the survey probed awareness of Object Management Group's two current initiatives: a major overhaul of the Unified Model Language, and the nascent Model Driven Architecture initiative (www.omg.org/mda). The results indicate that enterprise developers and development managers simply aren't on board with those works in progress.

Only 6 percent of those surveyed indicated that they have a good understanding of OMG's UML 2.0 initiative, while another 48 percent have heard of it but don't have a good understanding of it. The remaining respondents said they hadn't even heard about UML 2.0.

The results for the Model Driven Architecture should be even less encouraging-at least, from the perspective of MDA's supporters. While 7 percent of those surveyed have a good understanding of MDA, fully 59 percent said they haven't even heard of it. The remaining 34 percent have heard of it but don't have a clear understanding of what MDA means.

That lack of awareness is going to be a real challenge not only for OMG, but also for the vendors promoting UML tools and MDA-based platforms, as they attempt to interest enterprise developers in adopting their development processes to accommodate those new specifications.


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