Community developer blogs

The Variation Point

Recent Posts

• VSX: Extend Your Development Experience - SPA Cambridge 10th December

  Posted: 01 Dec 2008 at 15:29

  The next SPA Cambridge event will see Jean-Marc Prieur of Microsoft speak about Visual Studio Extensibility. The event takes place at Microsoft Research Cambridge from 19:00 on 10th December. Synopsis Microsoft Visual Studio provides a great set of development tools out of the box, but you may be su

• Bran Selic on modelling and UML2

  Posted: 18 Nov 2008 at 10:46

  The latest Software Engineering Radio podcast has Bran Selic being interviewed about UML2 and modelling in general. Bran was a keynote at our Code Generation 2008 conference in June and the recording was made at the event.

• Code Generation 2009 sponsor update

  Posted: 17 Nov 2008 at 22:01

  I’m very pleased to note that three sponsors have already signed-up for next June’s Code Generation 2009 event. New sponsors Soft Fluent and itemis are joined by returning sponsors NT/e. French company Soft Fluent is an innovative company aimed at industrializing the software dev

• Last chance to book for November’s ‘Software East’ event

  Posted: 17 Nov 2008 at 20:35

  If you’re into Model-Driven Software Development or Software Product Lines then Thursday’s Software East event at Downing College, Cambridge is the place to be. Steven Kelly of MetaCase will give a talk on ‘Moving from Coding to Model-Driven Development’. Steven is well-k

• Building a software business - Software East January event

  Posted: 15 Nov 2008 at 07:17

  January’s Software East event will have ‘Building a Software Business’ as its theme. Event details are being firmed up at the moment but the focus of the event will be a panel session considering questions such as: Do you need a ‘big’ idea? How to find

• When Good Architecture Goes Bad - SPA Cambridge 20th November

  Posted: 10 Nov 2008 at 15:12

  I’ll be delivering my favourite talk again at this Wednesday’s SPA Cambridge event. When Good Architecture Goes Bad - will see me describe the problems that can occur when software architecture ‘as-is’ deviates from architecture ‘as-intended’. I’ll be ru

• ACCU supports Software East events

  Posted: 10 Nov 2008 at 10:45

  Just a quick news snippet. ACCU have joined as a supporting partner for our new Software East evening event series starting in Cambridge on 20th November. The usual cost of attending is £15 (including some food) but if you’re an ACCU member you can get 10% off this by

• Danfoss Drives wins IBM Software Innovation Prize for Software Product Lines initiative

  Posted: 06 Nov 2008 at 10:34

  There’s a nice pure::variants case study developing at Danfoss Drives in Denmark. The pure-systems team has been working with them on moving their VLT frequency converter software over to a Software Product Lines approach and this initiative has been recognised by the award of an IBM Denmark S

• Architecture Analysis at Software Engineering Radio

  Posted: 04 Nov 2008 at 21:36

  The latest Software Engineering Radio episode has Bernhard Merkle of SICK, a friend of mine, speaking on Architecture Analysis. Here’s the synopsis: “During Evolution of a software system, it becomes more and more difficult to understand the originally planned software architecture.

• Code Generation and Prog Rock

  Posted: 31 Oct 2008 at 11:39

  I noticed a few weeks ago that Markus Voelter is a fan of Marillion. This took me back to the Eighties when a girl I liked was going out with one of the band members - no chance she was going to drop him for someone who spent their nights in the basement of the [...]

• Booking open for DSL and SPL talks in Cambridge on 20th November

  Posted: 28 Oct 2008 at 09:53

  Booking is now open for the Software East evening in Cambridge, UK on Thursday 20th November. The event costs £15 including a light buffet and we’re very lucky to have a couple of excellent speakers for this, our first event: Steven Kelly - Moving from Coding to Model-Driven Deve

• Code Generation 2009 - Call for Speakers now available

  Posted: 26 Oct 2008 at 11:00

  The Code Generation 2009 Call for Speakers is now available. Session proposals are sought covering topics such as: Tool and technology adoption Code Generation and Model Transformation tools and approaches Defining and implementing modelling languages Domain Analysis and Domain Engineering Software

• It’s not all bad news in the finacial services sector

  Posted: 12 Oct 2008 at 10:45 by Mark Dalgarno

  Computing notes a silver lining among all the recent clouds in the financial services sector. Apparently CIOs with “extensive systems integration and due diligence expertise have a golden opportunity to show thier mettle” due to increased merger and acquisition activity.

• IASA backs Code Generation 2009

  Posted: 10 Oct 2008 at 10:36 by Mark Dalgarno

  IASA - the software architecture folks - have joined once again as supporting partners for our Code Generation conference. IASA members will get 10% off conference fees when booking opens next year - instantly recouping your IASA membership dues - so join now! They have lots of great resources on so

• Software talks in Cambridge

  Posted: 06 Oct 2008 at 11:30 by Mark Dalgarno

  If you’re fed up with the time, costs and hassle of going to London (or further) to hear from the best software speakers then a new series of software talks we’re launching in Cambridge could be of interest. The first session will take place on the evening of Thursday November 20th at Do

• Tackling diversity in the mobile space

  Posted: 03 Oct 2008 at 16:41 by Mark Dalgarno

  The next Cambridge Wireless Software SIG event on 20th November in Cambridge, UK will consider the problems of developing for the hundreds of handsets on the market. The Software SIG is championed by me and Peter Hazlett of Symbian. Current opinion says that the ‘one-size-fits-all’ model just isn’t

• Kelly and Völter to keynote Code Generation 2009

  Posted: 23 Sep 2008 at 10:22 by Mark Dalgarno

  I’m pleased to announce that Steven Kelly (MetaCase) and Markus Völter (Independent) have accepted our invitation to keynote next year’s Code Generation 2009 event in Cambridge, UK. Both Steven and Markus are recognised experts in the field, regular conference speakers and published auth

• Oxford to Cambridge Cycle Ride - Sponsor Me

  Posted: 20 Sep 2008 at 18:17 by Mark Dalgarno

  Next Sunday I’ll be taking part with 1500 or so people in the annual Oxford to Cambridge cycle ride in aid of the British Heart Foundation. The ride is over 89 miles (143 kilometres) of the rolling English countryside and I have an approximate target time of 7 hours based on not very much anal

• UML vs. Domain-Specific Languages at embedded.com

  Posted: 20 Sep 2008 at 11:43 by Mark Dalgarno

  Check out the updated article I’ve co-written with Matthew Fowler of NT/e on UML vs. Domain-Specific Languages at embedded.com Of course since the article was written Microsoft have got excited about modelling so our final prediction may need some revision…

• Code Generation Day at ESS2008 - Update 2

  Posted: 19 Sep 2008 at 11:16 by Mark Dalgarno

  I mentioned previously that I was organising a Code Generation stream for the Embedded Systems Conference in Birmingham on 2nd October. The first thing to note is that the early-bird booking period for the event closes today. The programme, which will cover a range of topics on model-driven software