Modeling Meets Programming: A Comparative Study in Model Driven Engineering Action Languages

Modeling and programming have often been considered two different activities. While this may be true when modeling is primarily meant for human communication and early design explorations, it is not the case when modeling is meant for execution. Some approaches have been specifically developed to address this latter case with variable successes. In this paper, we discuss two such approaches, namely ALF and Umple. ALF has evolved from the modeling community to provide a textual syntax for an executable subset of UML called Foundation UML (fUML). Umple has evolved from the academic community to introduce the abstractions of modeling into programing languages. We compare both approaches, highlight their critical differences, and discuss their contribution to the evolution of model oriented programming languages.