After a recent presentation I gave at the New York DDD meetup, Vlad Gitlevitch interviewed me about Domain Specific Modeling as it relates to Domain Driven Design. The interview is now online.

Tomorrow I'll be presenting to the Domain Driven Design group in New York. The focus will be on the synergies between DDD and Domain Specific Modeling/Code Generation. DDD provides a solid framework for developing languages (they call them Ubiquitous Languages), and with DDD the Movie, it's clear that Eric Evans, Vlad Gitlevich et al are also bringing an appreciation of "soft skills" that has long been missing from developer education/training.

At the same time, Domain Specific Modeling has a lot to say about the practicalities of implementing executable domain languages (they call them Domain Specific Languages).

Eric is very clear in the DDD book that a UL does not need to be executable, and that sometimes ambiguities within a UL will make it more valuable to the domain experts for capturing requirements than a more formal language that is less usable or comprehensible by the people who know the business domain being modeled. However, there are plenty of cases where a UL *can* be executable and the question then is how we can take the experiences within the DDD and DSM domains and map them across the Domain Boundary to make it easier to elicit and then implement requirements more efficiently.

This is something I've been thinking a lot about since I first read the DDD book, and conversations with Eric Evans, Martin Fowler, Dan North, Vlad Gitlevich, Markus Voelter and others at ooPSLA '07 in Montreal really convinced me that this is an important space.

Hopefully the presentation will provide a good starting point for the experienced team that always attend the DDD events (really, you should go just to meet the people - a pretty impressive bunch). I'm then looking forward to a discussion phase where people can share their experiences in both DDD and DSM and we can discuss some rules of thumb for moving from UL's to DSLs.

Feel free to come along!

Well, if you ever wanted to check out the NYC Domain Driven Design group (which I thoroughly recommend - great group, great people), this is a chance to also find out a little more about Domain Specific Modeling and how DDD and DSM can work together to create a Ubiquitous Language and then to use that to generate your apps.

Here are the full details. It's Wednesday of next week (January 7th) at 6.30pm at the Microsoft offices on 6th Avenue. Sign up using the Meetup if you can come!

Anyone planning on coming?

The next Domain Driven Design meeting - hosted by Vladimir Gitlevich will be on Wednesday May 28th - 7-9pm. If you'd like an invite or to know more, please just drop a comment below and I'll email you with more information.

It's really a great group of people, and I'm looking forward to fitting the meeting in during a few days back in NYC between conferences.