As I wrote in a previous post, one of the main problems I saw in Microsoft Visual Studio DSL Tools was the lack of support for UML. I’m not a big fan of UML, but I must recognize that a common modeling language could be helpful in some scenarios.

Now, it seems that Microsoft changed it’s view. Bill Gates announced at Tech·Ed 2008 for Developers that UML will be part of Visual Studio 10. Great news. But this announce does not means that Microsoft is moving away from DSL. As Cameron Skinner wrote in a post, Microsoft will be using an hybrid model, a combination of both approaches: UML at the “logical” layer and DSLs at the “physical” layer. Not as powerful as openArchitectureWare, but a great step forward.

I have discovered another interesting online publication: The Journal of Software and Systems Modeling (SoSyM).

Software and System Modeling (SoSyM) is an English language quarterly international journal that focuses on theoretical and practical issues pertaining to the development and application of software and system modeling languages and techniques. The aim of the journal is to publish high-quality works that further understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of modeling languages and techniques, present rigorous analyses of modeling experiences, and present scalable modeling techniques and processes that facilitate rigorous and economical development of software.

The following are some of the topic areas that are of special interest:

• Methodological issues
• Model-based testing techniques
• Development of modeling standards
• Formal syntax and semantics of modeling languages such as the UML
• Rigorous model-based analysis
• Model composition and transformation
• Metamodeling techniques
• Measuring quality of models
• Modeling support for aspect-oriented development
• Ontological approaches to model engineering
• Generating test and code artifacts from models
• Model development tool environments
• Case studies and experience reports with significant modeling lessons learned
• Comparative analyses of modeling languages and techniques
• Scientific assessment of modeling practices

Check the list of articles at Springer, you will see well-known authors, as Ivar Jacobson, Alan W. Brown and Grady Booch among others.

Actually they have two Call for Papers for Theme Issues: Metamodeling and Model-Based Systems Engineering with SysML, UML, and OWL.

In This InfoQ video interview, Ivar Jacobson, one of the founders of UML, RUP, use cases, introduces his vision for a next generation development methodology that is both agile yet large like UP, by having humans collaborate with ‘Intelligent Agents’. Ivar also talks about his views on UML, MDA, AOP, and the future. Recorded at JAOO (jaoo.dk).