Template-based Code Generation Using Business Patterns

Introduction

In 1996, Country Companies Insurance embarked on a project that was intended to produce quality code with a high probability of reuse. The project was to be a CORBA-based distributed object system to support Life Insurance Underwriting (named LUW - Life Underwriting Workstation). The effort employed a two-tier object model and an object transaction manager (OTM). It was soon realized that, given the complexity of the model and the variability of human coding practice, it wasn't likely that we would reach our reuse goals (or even succeed at the project). It was also realized that most of the relationships, delegations, and navigations followed patterns. These patterns were falling out of analysis/design, our use of OTM frameworks, and our underlying database structure. Every direction pointed to the need for code generation.