Problems and Opportunities for Model-Centric vs. Code-Centric Development: A Survey of Software Professionals

We present some results of a survey of 113 software practitioners conducted in 2007. The aim of the survey was to uncover their attitudes and experiences regarding software modeling, as well as development approaches that avoid modeling. We were motivated by observations that modeling is not widely adopted; since many developers continue to take a code-centric approach. A key finding is that modeling tools are primarily used to create documentation and for up-front design with little code generation. Participants also believe that model-centric approaches to software engineering are easier but are currently not very popular since most participants currently work in code-centric environments. A finding from sub-sampling is that problems identified with model-centric approaches are similar regardless of a participant's country. Also, programmers that model extensively (versus those that do not model much) are more likely to agree that models become out of date and inconsistent with code.