See my new blog for the details!

I'm doing a project right now which requires me to generate code for a Coldbox app from a collection of DSLs, so I'm updating/upgrading all of my code generation tools (for the last couple of years I've spent most of my time using runtime interpretation of the DSLs instead). I just wanted to point out that CF template is a really useful little project that might be helpful if you need to do any code generation using ColdFusion.

See more at my new blog.

If you are in or near Amsterdam and would like to attend the inaugural Practical Product Lines conference, drop me a line before end of business tomorrow and I should be able to get you a pass. It can be for either the 20th or the 21st, but why *wouldn't* you come on the Tuesday and catch my case study?!

I'm really excited about the conference. For anyone involved in building multiple applications which have commonalities between them, software product lines can provide huge benefits in terms of efficiently reusing everything from specifications to workflows to contracts to tests and code. It's great to see a practitioner focused conference and the lineup of speakers suggests it's going to be a great experience!

On Thursday 18th June at Murray Edwards College (formerly New Hall), Cambridge, UK I'll be moderating a panel on The State of the Art in Domain Specific Modeling. I've been lucky enough to get an amazing panel consisting of Steve Cook (Microsoft), Juha-Pekka Tolvanen (MetaCase), Jos Warmer (Ordina) and Markus Völter ((Independent / itemis)) - four of the top minds in Domain Specific Modeling/code generation.

The topic is:

"Elegant support for refactoring DSLs. Better tooling for simplifying meta-model specification. Seamless integration between visual and textual model representations. What are the top DSM practitioners thinking about, frustrated about and excited about? A fast paced panel discussion with top practitioners sharing what they feel the limitations and issues still are in improving the effectiveness of Domain Specific Modeling and what new approaches and ideas they are excited about or are having great results with."

It's not too late to come along to find more about what the future of code generation, domain specific modeling and raising the level of abstraction in software development might hold!

I know I've been gushing about NFJS this weekend, but I want to do a shout out for Code Generation 2009 as the early bird is ending on March 31st.

I see so many people making the same simple mistakes when writing code generators and other tooling for building applications more quickly. Code Generation really is the premier practitioner conference for anyone interested in developing applications more quickly through code gen, domain specific modeling and software product lines. I'm also really excited by the keynote speakers this year. Steve and Markus really are two of the top minds in DSM/code gen, but at the same time they're practical and good communicators. The keynotes are going to be great.

We've also pulled together an excellent program from a lot of great submissions and I'm certainly looking forwards to getting some more experience with MetaEdit+ and openArchitectureWare as well as to see what Microsoft is up to these days with their DSL tools and to learn from the various other presentations and case studies. And as always I'm looking forwards to the "informal" learnings in the bars in the evenings. I'll be leading a panel at the end of the conference on "The State of the Art in Domain Specific Modeling" which I think (given the panelists I have so far) could be a really interesting sesison.

If you're going to be in the UK, the entire conference is £485.00 + VAT and shorter packages start from £195.00 + VAT. Really, when you compare it to the cost of writing code by hand or developing and maintaining a badly architected or conceived generator, it's an excellent investment.

I hope to see some of you there.

The schedule for Code Generation 2009 has just been released. This really is the best practitioner conference for code generation available. It runs 16th-18th June in Cambridge England and has many of the top experts in code generation, domain specific modeling and model driven development. If you want to learn more about generating code or building your applications more efficiently, it's a great way to save years of trial and error in just a day or two off of work.

I'll be moderating a panel on The State of the Art in Domain Specific Modeling.

Book now to save up to £110 by getting the early bird rate (ends March 31st) . . .

If you're interested in understanding more about the benefits of code generation, domain specific modeling and model driven development, JP Tolvanen from MetaCase is doing a webinar series starting on March 10th, 19th and 24th.

The first webinar will cover:

• Why and how the productivity of software development can be improved
• Industry experiences (EADS, Lucent, Nokia)
• What analysts say (Bloor, Burton, Cutter, Gartner)
• How to introduce Domain-Specific Modeling into an organization

JP is an excellent speaker and really knows what he is talking about. Check out the details here.

If you want to submit a session to Code Generation 2009 in Cambridge England, today is your last chance!

It's a really excellent conference, and this year Steve Kelly and Markus Völter - two of the top professionals in domain specific modeling/code gen will be doing the keynotes. It should be a great conference and it's really one of the few practitioner focused conferences focused in code generation and DSM.

If you're interested in code generation and/or domain specific modeling, there are some vendors you really need to check out - if only to understand how comprehensive the tooling offerings are starting to become and what it takes to do DSM well.

This post lists some of the key DSM vendors together with a very quick summary of why you might want to check each one out . . .

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ColdFusion has a great getMetadata() method for getting metadata about an object. What's better, you can add and access arbitrary properties, so if you add a title="Whatever" to your cfcomponent tag, you can #getMetadata(Object).Title# for an instance of that component and it'll return your Title property, so this effectively allows for annotations in CF as Chris Scott pointed out a while ago.

However, annotations don't inherit which causes a problem if you're using a extension to keep generated and custom code separate. Here's the problem and some possible solutions (as always, input appreciated!) . . .

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