Conceptual-Model Programming: A Manifesto

In order to promote Conceptual-Model Programming (CMP), we set forth these CMP Articles. We hold these articles to be the defining principles for model-complete software development. In essence, this CMP manifesto asserts that programming activities are to be carried out via conceptual modeling. For applications amenable to conceptual-model designs, software developers should never need to write a line of traditional code. Thus, programming is actually “Conceptual-Model Programming” (“CMP”). To accommodate CMP, conceptual-modeling languages must be executable. They must also be capable of completely deploying both databases and user interfaces and conceptually expressing database access and user interaction. To enable CMP, a conceptual-model compiler must exist to generate underlying code (which could be, but is not necessarily, high-level-language code that itself needs further compilation). Important, however, is that model-compiled code is beyond the purview of CMP programmers—both for initially creating the application system being developed and for enhancing or evolving the application system. Thus, application-system development becomes entirely model-driven, and CMP constitutes model-complete software development.