UI//Schema-Driven UI//MDA

Model-Driven Architecture -- the academic/enterprise term for generating software artifacts (UI, APIs, database schemas) from abstract models rather than writing them by hand.

Model-Driven Architecture -- the academic/enterprise term for generating software artifacts (UI, APIs, database schemas) from abstract models rather than writing them by hand.

OMG (Object Management Group) formalized it in 2001 with UML as the modeling language

The promise: define the model once, generate platform-specific implementations automatically

The reality: the generated code is either too generic to be useful or too rigid to customize

Survived in narrower forms: OpenAPI spec → client SDKs, Prisma/Drizzle schema → migrations, protobuf → typed clients

The pattern works when the model-to-code mapping is mechanical and well-defined; it breaks when the target requires judgment calls