Question

Microsoft, of Cairo fame, is working on Oslo, a new modeling platform. Bob Muglia, Senior Vice President of Microsoft Server & Tools Business, states that the benefits of modeling have always been clear.

In simple, practical terms, what are the clear benefits that Oslo bestows upon its users?

Answer 1

In theory, there are a few benefits:

• The people with the business knowledge can create the software models so you’re less likely to lose anything in translation.
• When non-technical shareholders create models, it forces them to ‘think like a developer’. They see that what they considered obvious and easy is actually difficult when you formalize it.
• It’s more efficient. Business people have business knowledge and technical people have technical knowledge so, why not let each group design a system in their area of expertise? No more games of telephone as business experts re-explain what they mean to a developer. Developers are no longer distracted by cryptic business needs. They can focus on the interaction between highly technical systems.

In practice, it’s a lot trickier:

• Models are hard and that’s that. Just because you push model creation to a different group doesn’t mean you get foolproof models. Software development is all about modeling so developers are used to it. You may actually lose efficiency as a second group comes to grips with formalizing their understanding of a business need.
• Model driven dev is tightly linked to OO concepts. OO is good for a lot of things, but not everything. What happens if what you really need falls outside the abilities of your modeling tool?
• In my experience, the division between business and technical people is artificial. The most effective people are technical-minded business people or business-minded technical people. They make things happen. If you separate business tasks from technical tasks, you ruin the opportunity for cross-training and cross-thinking.