A notable problem of Java Enterprise Development is its inherent complexity. Also if you use Java EE standard or Spring, your development team will never be as productive as a VisualBasic, PHP, Ruby&Rails, 4GL or even COBOL development team. The complexity of Java Enterprise requires very skilled developers, moreover these developers need to write a lot of code.

The ideal solution for this problem could be the Model-Driven Development approach. Basically MDD states that just the model part of an application has to be developed, and the rest of the application will be generated from this model. In this way, the developers write less and simpler code, nevertheless a Java Enterprise Application is created.

However, for today, MDD usage is still very complex. It needs a big investment of time, expertise, and tooling; usually building your own DSLs and combining them into a software factory, and it takes a lot of effort. Therefore, only big companies can afford MDD, and it can only be paid back when using it multiple times for different projects. And, of course, MDD is a hard alternative for mid-size and small companies.

Fortunately you can enjoy the benefits of MDD without any pain. Just remove MDA, DSLs, UML and code generation from MDD and you'll obtain a simple but effective way to do Model Driven Development.

The Better Software with Less Code white paper examines how to do Model Driven Development in a lightweight way, so it could be affordable for small and mid-size companies, and cheaper for the big ones.