A radical solution to TheCodeBaseProblem is to get rid of the code base entirely: capture requirements and generate the code instead.

This approach is being championed by a growing number of tools on the market. They allow you to generate either all or part of an application:

http://www.togethersoft.com

http://www.clientsoft.com

http://www.wildetechnologies.com

http://www.ironspeed.com

http://www.alachisoft.com

http://www.deklarit.com

http://www.compilex.com

This approach is not new. In the 1970’s it was referred to as “Automatic Programming”. Eventually this became “Computer Assisted Software Engineering” or CASE in the 1980’s. It currently goes by the name of “Model Integrated Development” (MIC) or Automated Software Engineering (http://www.ase-conference.org/).

Meanwhile, the Object Management Group (OMG) is pushing a concept called Model Driven Architecture TM which involves creating a platform independent application model and then using a model compiler to create an instance of the application for a particular platform. While this is seductive and has merit as a general approach, I think it’s a mistake to model the implementation detail in UML.

Why can’t a computer derive much of the implementation?