Automatic Code Generation Through Model-Driven Design

Software engineering has not been able to automate software development to a degree necessary to take full advantage of the hardware features available in current computing technology. This lag in capabilities can be attributed, in a large part, to the lack of sufficiently complex and capable automation tools within the software community. This paper investigates the feasibility of using automatic code generation as a direct output of current model-driven design systems as a possible solution to this noted deficiency. A number of different approaches to modeling and code generation are discussed along with the near-term and future possibilities for each approach. The discussion results in a conclusion that the level of technical capability of the current systems is insufficient to provide a true solution to the general problems facing software engineering, but further research and development of the modeling-generation systems could very well encompass the solution at some time in the future.