MetaCase (www.metacase.com), provider of the leading domain-specific modeling (DSM) environment, MetaEdit+, today announced a new plug-in for Eclipse. The plug-in allows users to work with MetaEdit+ models directly from Eclipse. It also automatically imports source code generated from the MetaEdit+ models into Eclipse, and builds and runs it there.
Traditionally, it has been difficult for development teams to combine the use of models and code – modeling tools and programming environments. The reason is partly because of the modeling languages used and partly because of the tools. With the plug-in, domain-specific models, expressed as diagrams, matrices or tables in MetaEdit+, can be browsed and used directly from Eclipse.
Unlike other modeling approaches, Domain-Specific Modeling utilizes high-level models which describe things in the terms of a company’s individual problem domain, instead of attempting to visualize the code developers will write. These models directly mirror real-world objects, allowing developers to make better designs with less effort and enabling them to generate full, production-quality code that interfaces correctly with their existing software platforms, frameworks, components and libraries.
The MetaEdit+ plug-in for Eclipse allows generators to import and integrate the generated code with the code written in Eclipse as frameworks or unique business logic code. The integration also enables debugging at the model level: while running the application code, models can be traced and annotated.
“Flexibility and openness of tools are important for the software development industry. Tools that provide interfaces and extensibility, like Eclipse and MetaEdit+, can be more easily adapted to a company’s development processes, languages and frameworks,” said Dr. Juha-Pekka Tolvanen, CEO of MetaCase.
The MetaEdit+ plug-in for Eclipse is available at Google code. The MIT license allows companies to freely adapt it to their specific needs.
