Upcoming release of UML 2 will generate interest in "model driven architecture" or MDA. MDA has to be one of the most ambitious ideas from software engineering. It envisions development process as creation and refinement of models expressed in UML. Architects will provide UML models as input to new tools that support UML 2, and the tools will generate code for implementation technologies like J2EE, or .Net. In other words, UML 2 and its tools are programming languages and their compilers taken to higher level of abstraction to bridge the gap between business and IT. Right model means quality software. UML is UNCOL.

Dave Thomas' "UML - Unified or Universal Modeling Language?" helps us build resistance to seduction of top-down mindset. Ted Neward also points out a few pitfalls of "model-first" mentality. We welcome readers' models on the relation between this kind of ambitious deductive reasoning and confusion of nomenclature and phenomena.

Update on 2003-09-13 Martin Fowler (who should get credit for making UML useful and accessible through his books and articles) argues that MDA's claim of platform independence is baseless.