On a Unified View of Modeling and Programming Position Paper

In the software community, modeling and programming are generally considered to be different things. However, some software models specify behavior precisely enough that they can be executed in their own right. And all programs can be considered models, at least of the executions that they specify. So perhaps modeling and programming are not actually so different after all. Indeed, there is a modeling/programming convergence going on right now in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) community, with a recent series of specifications on precise execution semantics for a growing subset of UML. But the language design legacy of UML is largely grounded in the old view that sharply separates models and programs, complicating the new convergence. It is perhaps now time to move forward to a new generation of unified modeling/programming languages.