1. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Umuhoza Eric
eric.umuhoza@polimi.it
@EricUmuhoza
Domain-Specific Modeling and
Code Generation for
Cross-Platform Multi-Device
Mobile Apps

2. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Context
2Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza

3. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Relevance
3
• Smart-phone users expected to surpass 2
billion by 2016 [eMarketer]
• From Games to Serious Business [Flurry
Analytics]
• Increasing number of mobile apps
• By May 2015 [Statista]
• Google Play 1.5 million apps
• Apple App store 1.4 million apps
• App revenues expected to reach 92 billion
US dollars by 2018 [ABI research]
Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza

4. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Problem
4
• Diversity of Platforms (OSs)
• Different Front-End Requirements
• Resources Scarcity
• Device Diversity
Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza

5. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Challenge 1 - Platform
5
• Fragmented market of
mobile OSs
• Cross-platform
development becomes
a must
• Is a barrier for IT solution
providers especially for SMEs
Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza

6. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Challenge 2 & 3 - Front End Requirements &
Resource Scarcity
6
• User Interaction
• Tactile surfaces
• Gestures like swipe, press, long press, …
• Sensor-based interaction
• Rotate, shake,…
• Size of screen
• Context
• Network, battery level, …
• Resource Scarcity
Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza

7. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Challenge 4 - Device diversity
7Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza
Multi-device
development

8. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Proposed solution
8Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza
Requirements specification
through standard languages
Domain
Model
User
Interaction
Transformation
rules
Native Code
Code for
Cross-Platform
frameworks

9. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Cross-Platform Development
9Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza
Platform Independent Model (PIM)
PSM
M2T
Cross Platform
Framework Specific
Model (FSM)
M2T
M2M
Native
Code
Native
Code
M2T
Cross-Platform
Code
Cross-Platform
Code
M2T
M2M

10. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Language Stack
10Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza
Interaction Flow Modeling Language
(IFML)
Platform Independent
Extension
(Mobile IFML)
Platform-Specific
Extension
Unified Modeling
Language (UML)
Platform-Specific
Extension
Platform-Specific
Extension
Platform-Specific
Extension
Platform-Specific
Extension
Platform-Specific
Extension

11. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Multi-Device Development
11Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza

12. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Multi-Device Development
12Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza
PIM
PIM for
Tablet
PIM for
Smart-Phone
PIM for
…
PIM for
Smart-Watch
M2M
M2M M2M
M2M

13. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Preliminary Work
13
• Mobile modeling language
• Graphical Models editor
 An eclipse plugin based on Sirius
• Prototypes of Code Generators
 Code Generator for Android
• Acceleo templates
• Java + XML
 Code Generator for iOS
• Objective-C
 Code Generator for Apache Cordova
• Apache Ant + Groovy
• HTML5 + JS + CSS
• Initial validation through developed mobile apps
Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza

14. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Interaction Flow Modeling Language
14
• An OMG standard designed for expressing:
 Content visualized in the user interfaces
 User events and interaction, and
 Control behavior of the front-end of SW
applications
Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza

15. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
IFML - Main concepts
15Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza

16. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
IFML by example
16Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza
Album
Search
«Window» AlbumSearch
Album
List
«Window» Albums
Album
Details
«Window» Album
«ParameterBindingGroup»
Title  AlbumTitle
Year  AlbumYear
«ParameterBindingGroup»
SelectedAlbum  AnAlbum
«Form» «List» «Details»
Event
View Container
View
Component

17. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
IFML metamodel - Extensions
17Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza
Organized in two main packages:  IFML Core
 IFML Extensions
and then you can extend it as you
want, for different fields and
platforms (Web, Mobile, …)

18. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Mobile –Specific Extension of IFML
18
• Investigation of technological mobile platforms
(iOS, Android, cross-platform technologies)
• Extraction of common features and abstraction /
conceptualization
• Four main sets of extension definitions in the
language:
 Mobile Containers and Components
 Mobile Events, addressing the capturing of the mobile
events
 Mobile Actions
 MobileContext: user’s intent, device’s capacity,
environment surrounding the user
Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza

19. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Mobile IFML - Events
19Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza
Events generated by
the interaction of the
user (gestures, …)
MobileContainer
MobileEvent

20. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Mobile IFML – Access to native features
20Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza
MobileComponent
MobileAction MobileActionEvent
• Access to system features
• Native functions
• Sensors

21. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Mobile IFML - Context
21Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza
• It assumes particular relevance in mobile apps
• The context must gather all the dimensions that characterize:
 The user's intent
 The capacity of access device
 The communication network, and etc.

22. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Mobile IFML Editor
22Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza

23. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Future plans
23Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza
• MD Analytics
• Design & anti design patterns for MD mobile
apps
• Multi Devices Development
 M2M transformations
• application dependent vs application independent rules
• Platform-specific extensions
• Improve code generators
• Design Use cases demonstrating the
effectiveness of the research approach
• Modernization

24. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Expected Contributions
24Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza
• Overview of MDD approaches for cross-
platform apps development
• A platform of criteria for evaluating MDD
approaches to mobile apps development
• Guidelines for MDD adopters
• Reduce time to market
• Increase the availability of cross platform
apps
 Freedom in choosing device and OS

25. DIPARTIMENTO DI ELETTRONICA, INFORMAZIONE E BIOINGEGNERIA
Questions and Contributions
25Doctoral Symposium, STAF 2015. Eric Umuhoza