web dev//UI//schema-driven UI//MDA

Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) is the academic and enterprise term for generating software artifacts (UI, APIs, database schemas) from abstract models instead of writing them by hand. The OMG (Object Management Group) formalized it in 2001, with UML as the modeling language.

Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) is the academic and enterprise term for generating software artifacts (UI, APIs, database schemas) from abstract models instead of writing them by hand. The OMG (Object Management Group) formalized it in 2001, with UML as the modeling language.

The promise was to define the model once and generate platform-specific implementations automatically. In practice the generated code came out either too generic to be useful or too rigid to customize. It survived in narrower forms: an OpenAPI spec generates client SDKs, a Prisma or Drizzle schema generates migrations, and protobuf generates typed clients, each a DSL in service of code generation. The pattern works when the mapping from model to code is mechanical and well defined, and breaks when the target requires judgment calls.