These are the slides of my talk "iPhonical and model-driven software development on the iPhone" at the German iPhone Developer Conference 2009 in Cologne. Unfortunately, this version does not include the 25+ minutes demos I presented during the talk.

1. iPhonicalSoftware Development
and Model-Driven
Heiko Behrens (itemis)
backchannel via #iphonical #iphonedevcon09

2. / soft·ware de·vel·op·ment / n.
the set of activities that results in
software products. ~ may include
research, new development,
modification, reuse, maintenance,
or any other activities that result in
software products.

3. Sketching some
Typical Situations
in
Software Development
#iphonical #iphonedevcon09

4. Boring code

5. Accidental complexity

6. Wrong level of abstraction

7. Anatomy of Modern Software
Software artifact

8. Anatomy of Modern Software
manually written code Frameworks
Libraries

9. Anatomy of Modern Software
manually written
code
Frameworks
schematic code (manually written)
Libraries

10. (rote) coding doesn’t cut it!

11. Our Problems
Can we solve them with code generation?

12. Yes, we can!

13. Talking about
Common Approaches
to
Advoid Redundancy
#iphonical #iphonedevcon09

14. Wizards

15. Wizards in Practice
Ruby on Rails AppLoop
Xcode Project Templates

16. This wizard whips up a
complete and running
legacy application with
just a single click.

17. Designers

18. Designers in Practice
Graphical
Designers
Interface Core
Builder Data

19. Interface Builder
is no abstraction
but another approach
to object construction.
Handwritten code is
still needed.

20. Core Data
produces code a
developer can work
with but overwrites
handcrafted value.

21. Introducing
Model-Driven
Software Development
#mdsd
#iphonical #iphonedevcon09

22. Raise the level
of abstraction
where possible
and generate
code wisely.

23. One cannot
abstract away
everything.
Manual code is
great for all the
special cases and
details.

24. Use the best of both worlds at the same time.

25. Isn’t
Core Data
#mdsd?
#iphonical #iphonedevcon09

26. Models Data Schema

27. Sophisticated Runtime

28. Demo

29. So, what’s
# iPhonical
about?
#iphonedevcon09

30. View DSL View / GUI NIB
Entity DSL
ViewController ViewController
Remote DSL
Service DSL
Transfomer
ServiceFacades
Mapper
ORM / DAO RemoteClient
Entities Messages
Sqlite JSON HTTP
Any
ServerFacade
RestService
Server Server
Entities Messages
JBoss / RestEasy

31. Thoughts of an iPhone developer

32. View DSL View / GUI NIB
Entity DSL
Better
Manually
ViewController ViewController
Remote DSL
Service DSL
What’s this?
Transfomer
ServiceFacades
Mapper
Core Data
ORM / DAO
Entities
Framework
Messages
RemoteClient
Sqlite JSON HTTP
Any
ServerFacade
RestService
Most likely
Server
Entities
Server
Messages
legacy JBoss / RestEasy

33. Will now present
Objective Resource
or
“iPhone on Rails”
#iphonical #iphonedevcon09

34. Demo

35. Entities with Objective Resource
#import "ObjectiveResource.h" #import "ObjectiveResource.h"
#import "Dog.h" #import "Person.h"
@interface Person : NSObject { @implementation Person
! NSString *personId; @synthesize personId;
! NSDate *updatedAt; @synthesize updatedAt;
! NSDate *createdAt; @synthesize createdAt;
! NSString *name; @synthesize name;
}
// handle pluralization
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *personId; + (NSString *) getRemoteCollectionName {
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSDate *updatedAt; ! return @"people";
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSDate *createdAt; }
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *name;
- (NSArray *) findAllDogs {
// returns dogs ! return [Dog findRemote:[NSString stringWithFormat:
- (NSArray *) findAllDogs; @"%@/dogs", personId, nil]];
- (NSArray *) findAllDogsWithResponse: (NSError * *) aError; }
@end - (NSArray *) findAllDogsWithResponse: (NSError * *) aError {
! return [Dog findRemote:[NSString stringWithFormat:
@"%@/dogs", personId, nil] withResponse: aError];
}
- (void) dealloc {
! [personId release];
! [updatedAt release];
! [createdAt release];
! [name release];
! [super dealloc];
}
@end

36. Real Information Content
#import "ObjectiveResource.h" #import "ObjectiveResource.h"
#import "Dog.h" #import "Person.h"
@interface Person : NSObject { @implementation Person
! NSString *personId; @synthesize personId;
! NSDate *updatedAt; @synthesize updatedAt;
! NSDate *createdAt; @synthesize createdAt;
! NSString *name; @synthesize name;
}
// handle pluralization
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *personId; + (NSString *) getRemoteCollectionName {
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSDate *updatedAt; ! return @"people";
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSDate *createdAt; }
@property (nonatomic, retain) NSString *name;
- (NSArray *) findAllDogs {
// returns dogs ! return [Dog findRemote:[NSString stringWithFormat:
- (NSArray *) findAllDogs; @"%@/dogs", personId, nil]];
- (NSArray *) findAllDogsWithResponse: (NSError * *) aError; }
@end - (NSArray *) findAllDogsWithResponse: (NSError * *) aError {
! return [Dog findRemote:[NSString stringWithFormat:
@"%@/dogs", personId, nil] withResponse: aError];
}
- (void) dealloc {
! [personId release];
! [updatedAt release];
! [createdAt release];
! [name release];
! [super dealloc];
}
@end

37. Objective-C #ftl ?
#iphonical #iphonedevcon09

38. Objective-C

39. Suppose...

40. You’d want to core an apple...

41. ... for your kids.

42. ?
Right tool for the job

43. Your trusty swiss army knife!

44. Suppose...

45. You’d want to core a few more apples...

46. ... for an apple cake.

47. Still the best tool for the job?

48. Better use this one

49. ...and this one

50. ... a DSL is ...

51. A specific tool
for a specific job

52. A specific tool
for a specific job

53. Idea behind #iphonical :
Use DSLs to describe the world
#iphonedevcon09

54. ! ! entity Car {
! ! ! ! ! ! String name;
! ! ! ! ! ! String number;
! ! ! ! ! ! Integer km;
! ! ! ! ! ! JourneyEntry * journeys;
! ! };
! !
!
!
!
!
!
!
entity JourneyEntry {
! ! ! ! Location startLocation;
Entities
! ! ! ! ! ! Location endLocation;
! ! ! ! ! ! String comment;
! ! ! ! ! ! Integer startKm;
! ! ! ! ! ! Integer endKm;
! ! ! ! ! ! Car car;
! ! ! ! ! ! Driver driver;
! ! ! ! ! ! Reason reason;
! ! };
! ! entity CarDataResponse {
! ! ! ! ! ! String creationDate;
!
!
!
!
!
!
! ! ! ! Car car;
! ! ! ! Location location;
! ! ! ! JourneyEntry journey;
Services / Messages
! ! ! ! ! ! Driver driver;
! ! };
! ! restService iDriveLogService "/idrivelogservice" {
! ! ! ! ! ! baseUrl "http://localhost:8080/iDriveLogRESTWebServices";
! ! ! ! ! ! get data "/data" response:CarDataResponse;
! ! };
! ! viewController Root {
UI
! ! ! ! ! ! ui Label myLabel;
! ! ! ! ! ! ui Textfield myTextfield;
! ! ! ! ! ! action myAction;
! ! };

55. Leverage Entity DSL
for
Objective Resource

56. View / GUI
Entity DSL
ViewController
Objective Resource
Entities and
Mapping
JSON / HTTP
Rails
Application

57. Demo

58. Wait...
#iPhonical works
with any framework
?
#iphonedevcon09

59. Demo of custom templates

60. #iPhonical: Where to get
and its future
#iphonedevcon09

61. Open source Apache License 2.0
code
code.google.com/p/iphonical/
Currently 8 participants

62. What’s comming up?
! Publications in upcoming
Eclipse Magazin
! ShowCase about Conferences
! Tighter integration with Xcode

63. twitter @HBehrens
blog http://HeikoBehrens.net
mail Heiko.Behrens@itemis.de
xing http://www.xing.com/profile/Heiko_Behrens
linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/HeikoBehrens
code.google.com/p/iphonical