Cambridge Wireless have signed up as supporting partner for Code Generation 2008.

In return for their support Cambridge Wireless founder members will get 20% off conference fees and associate members 10% off.

Cambridge Wireless is a network of companies with a shared interest in the application of wireless technologies. Activities are based around a number of Special Interest Groups (SIGs), each focussed on a specific technology and/or market area. I run the software SIG for CW - next meeting April 11th - drop me a line via Software Acumen for more details.

The Embedded Systems Show takes place next week so I thought it might be worth giving my own personal take on what to see there.

• I’ll be visiting the ARTiSAN Software stand to get an update on ARTiSAN Studio. This is a model-driven development toolset aimed at avionics development. We carried an interview on the Code Generation Network earlier this year with Fabrizio Pugnetti a Senior Consultant at ARTiSAN’s Italian office. Lots of other model-driven tool providers will be at the exhibition if you’re in the market for said type of tool but I know ARTiSAN best.
• No Magic will also be at ESS. I’ve heard good things about their Magic Draw generator toolset so feel I should see a demo if nothing more. Perhaps I can persuade them to write an article for the Code Generation Network.
• I’ve blogged before about Proven Software Solutions - it looks like they’re continuing to grow so their reusable software for embedded development brokerage seems to be working despite my initial scepticism.
• The model-driven design for software track of the associated conference could be interesting with Juha-Pekka Tolvanen speaking on Domain-Specific Modelling for full code generation. Juha-Pekka was a speaker at Code Generation 2007 and comes highly recommended.
• One thing I think is new for ESS is a set of free design workshops covering topics such as Model-Based testing, Graphical C programming and static analysis for embedded systems. I’d be interested to hear from anyone who attends these to find out what they’re like.

Finally, if you are planning on attending then do say hello. Me and Danilo Beuche of pure-systems will be demonstrating the pure::variants variant management toolset and it’s associated add-ons for DOORS, Simulink, ClearQuest and CaliberRM on stand 532.

I’ve heard that my session proposal for SPA 2008 has been accepted.

The session will be a 150 minute workshop titled “When good architecture goes bad” and will investigate the issue of software architectural decay and the value of preventing such decay.

Here’s the session abstract:

As software evolves its architecture as-is deviates from its architecture as-intended – the architecture is said to decay.

Architectural decay can be a problem because:

• the time, effort and risk in implementing further changes increases
• the effect of further changes becomes harder to predict
• further changes typically cause the as-is architecture to deviate further from the as-intended architecture – the situation becomes worse.

This session looks at examples of architectural decay and explores practices to prevent or slow such decay. A key element of the session is an attempt to place a value on such preventative work.

Objectives:

1. To explore the effects of architectural decay.
2. To agree that preventing (or slowing) architectural decay is a ‘good thing’.
3. To identify possible practices for maintaining architectural integrity.
4. To identify the value of preventative work to prevent or slow architectural decay.
   

The Code Generation 2008 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 Product Lines
• Language evolution and modularization
• Meta Modelling
• Runtime virtual machines versus direct code generation

The submission deadline is Friday January 18th 2008. Accepted session leaders have their conference fees waived.

Visit the Code Generation 2008 web site for more information about the conference.

My neighbour tells me today that he is disappointed with my recent blog activity as it has mainly consisted of event announcements. However, these things have to be publicised…

So, SPA Cambridge’s next event will be presented by Ivan Moore of Team Optimization:

Test Driven Development (TDD) has gained popularity in recent years, but is still not practiced by the majority of developers in industry. This hands-on tutorial will give participants practical experience of doing TDD, showing how it produces simple code, reduces bugs and reduces incidence of regressions in the future. For this tutorial, at least half of the participants will have to bring a laptop. The exercises will be presented in Java; participants can use other languages if they want but the presenter might not be able to provide as much support for other languages.

The event will take place at the David building, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge from 19:00 on October 10th. See here for more information and to preregister.