An Exploration of the 'It' in 'It Depends': Generative versus Interpretive Model-Driven Development

Software producing organizations are increasingly using model driven development platforms to improve software quality and developer productivity. Software architects, however, need to decide whether the platform generates code (that might be compiled) or if the model is immediately interpreted by an interpreter embedded in the application. Presently, there is no clear guidance that enables architects to decide for code generation, interpretation, or a hybrid approach. Although the approaches are functionally equivalent, they have different quality characteristics. An exploration is done on the quality characteristics of code generation versus interpretation as a model execution approach. A literature study is done to gather quantitative data on the quality characteristics of the two model execution approaches. The results of this study are matched with observations made during a case study. With the resulting support method architects of model driven development platforms can avoid costly wrong choices in the development of a model driven development platform.