Pragmatic Approach to Modeling and Generating Mobile Cross-Platform Applications

Mohamed Lachgar,Khalid Lamhaddab,Khalid Elbaamrani,Abdelmounaim Abdali

doi:10.3844/jcssp.2019.416.434

Abstract

As a result of the ubiquity of smartphones, the number of mobile applications is extensively growing. In order to build native apps that reach all devices, developers should deal with many different operating systems, SDKs, development tools and programming languages, which implies serious effects on cost, time and success of the mobile project. In this study, the main objective is to propose a pragmatic approach for modeling and generating native cross-platform mobile applications, respecting a multi-layer architecture. The proposed approach is an MDA based technique which combines UML formals and DSL. The paper is illustrated with the modeling of a typical CRUD based app.

Highlights

The mobile application development industry knows recently an uprising growth, due to the intensive use of mobile apps, where the bulk of them operate under Android, iOS and Windows Phone operating systems
The development of applications designed for mobile platforms requires more concerns, such as code efficiency, interaction with peripherals, as well as the speed of market invasion
This paper offers a framework allowing companies to make up one’s mind on the approach to be adopted, to develop a multi-platform mobile application, the authors in (Lachgar and Abdali, 2017b) showed that the native approach has several advantages over other approaches

Summary

Introduction

The mobile application development industry knows recently an uprising growth, due to the intensive use of mobile apps, where the bulk of them operate under Android, iOS and Windows Phone operating systems. This paper offers a framework allowing companies to make up one’s mind on the approach to be adopted, to develop a multi-platform mobile application, the authors in (Lachgar and Abdali, 2017b) showed that the native approach has several advantages over other approaches. The Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is a modern software engineering approach that proposes to elevate models to the rank of first-class concept (Paige et al, 2016). It is a generative form of engineering, characterized by a rigorous process, whereby everything is generated from a model, which shifts the models from contemplative to productive. The MDA approach has been proposed by Object Management Group (OMG) in 2001 This is a peculiar view of model driven development (Hailpern and Tarr, 2006). The Model Driven Development (MDD) artifacts are used to specify, simulate, verify, test and generate the final system

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion