Project Plan For Model Discovery, version 0.8

The MoDisco project provides an extensible framework for developing model-driven tools in order to support different software modernization use-cases. The various components which are part of this model-driven reverse engineering framework are organized, within the project, in three different layers:

• Infrastructure: reusable generic components independent from any specific legacy technology;
• Technologies: components dedicated to a particular legacy technology (e.g. Java, C#, Cobol, etc) but independent from any specific modernization scenario;
• Use-cases: components providing a direct solution for a given modernization scenario (and reusing components from the Infrastructure and Technologies layers).

This project plan covers components contained in each of these three layers. The already available components will be continuously developed or enhanced by the MoDisco team, and some additional components increasing the number of provided modernization capabilities will be created. Note that new components proposed by external contributors would also be integrated at some point by the MoDisco team if relevant within the context of the project.

The MoDisco project delivers a set of facilities covering the different MoDisco framework layers, i.e. the MoDisco infrastructure as well as the various legacy technologies and several use-cases which are supported.

Each release will include:

• An update site including runtime, SDK, documentation and source
• Packaged features and plug-ins (downloads)
• Examples (downloads)

The current release provides the common infrastructure and a dedicated support for the Java legacy technology.

MoDisco 0.7 has been released by the end of 2009.
MoDisco 0.8 synchronizes its builds according to the Helios release schedule.

MoDisco runs under a standard Eclipse Modeling platform, including EMF (for model handling), MDT-UML2 (for UML support) and M2M-ATL (for model-to-model transformation support).

Its current version is developed with and for Eclipse Helios.

Most of the MoDisco components are currently internationalized but the basically used language is English-US.

As it is the first official project release to be planned, there are no such compatibility issues.

A list of project requirements and agreed upon implementation time frames is found in this document. A set of overall themes is used there in order to indicate what major set of functionalities is to be concentrated on. These themes are presented below, while the requirements document and associated Bugzilla entries are left to those wanting more detailed information on each.

The first objective of the MoDisco project is to provide a common generic framework dedicated to model-driven reverse engineering. Thus, the stabilization of its architecture in a clean shape is a main theme.

As the MoDisco infrastructure has been clearly designed with the aim of being highly extensible, the objective is to make as much as possible a good use of other Eclipse technologies (especially the ones coming from the Modeling project). This theme gathers all the items related to this area.

In order for the framework to be directly usable within a given modernization scenario, some components specific to legacy technologies must be available. As Java is currently one of the most used technology (if not the most), the focus will first be put on providing a relevant set of capabilities around it.

Although the focus has first been voluntarily put on the Java technology, there are many other different technologies which are relevant within the context of modernization scenarios. This theme is about enumerating the various items concerning such technologies.

With the reverse engineering field gaining more and more importance in industry, MoDisco, as an Eclipse project, has a key role to play. This is why developing the MoDisco team and promoting the project in general, both inside and outside the Eclipse community, are main goals. Items related to these objectives are listed in this theme.

This "miscellaneous" theme gathers the items which cannot be classified yet in any other of the previous themes.