Foreword to the Second Edition


I first came in contact with model-driven architecture in 1998 when I started with a company called BoldSoft, which is now a part of Borland. Of course, at that time the term Model Driven Architecture (MDA) was not yet coined by the Object Management Group, and what we were doing does not directly match the MDA terminology as it is defined today in terms of Platform Independent Models and Platform Specific Models.

This was also my first contact with OCL. When I came to BoldSoft, they explained to me about their product, a framework for building applications based on UML models, and then they said, "Oh, and we have implemented this little language," and they handed me The Object Constraint Language: Precise Modeling with UML by Jos Warmer and Anneke Kleppe, the book for which what you are holding in your hands right now is the second edition.

I would say that the reasons why OCL is a successful language are threefold. First, it is small. There is only a handful of simple concepts to grasp: you access an attribute, call a function, or select objects from a collection. Second, it is compact, yet powerful. You can write short and to-the-point expressions that "do a lot." Third, and perhaps most important, it has the feel of an ordinary object-oriented programming language. It has no mathematical symbols or advanced theoretical concepts, but a syntax and structure that is readily accessible to most people with some experience in software development.

I have been able to observe the success of OCL firsthand at BoldSoft. The OCL implementation is one of the features of our framework that has received the most praise from our customers. Many of them have become devoted OCL fans. They appreciate that it is easy to learn, but mostly they appreciate that it simplifies their work. They are software developers, and they know how much programming would be required in an ordinary programming language to do the same thing as one small OCL expression.

During the last couple of years , I have had the pleasure of working with Jos and Anneke in the development of the new version of the standard for OCL, OCL 2.0. This work has focused on strengthening the semantic foundation for OCL, and adding a few well- chosen capabilities to enhance OCL's expressive power, to make it ready to deliver its part of the MDA promise. Therefore, it is fitting that the new version of the standard should be accompanied by a new edition of Jos' and Anneke's OCL book.

It is a comprehensive book. Not only does it cover the OCL language itself, both with easy-to-follow examples and in-depth explanations of every language element, it also puts the language into context and shows how and where to use OCL. The book contains numerous tips and tricks for modeling with OCL, and it paints the broader picture of how OCL fits into the Model Driven Architecture, and UML modeling in general. There can be no doubt that it will be the definitive work on OCL for many years to come.


          Anders  Ivner



Object Constraint Language, The. Getting Your Models Ready for MDA
The Object Constraint Language: Getting Your Models Ready for MDA (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0321179366
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 137

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