Unbreakable software! How long have we been dreaming of that. Unfortunately, it is still a dream despite enormous technological innovations in the area of software engineering, because architectural changes cause the need for complex testing and subsequent efforts again and again. With ModuleStudio there is a way without much work available. Third-party applications for the Zikula framework can now be described in form of a persistent model, completely independent from their technical implementation. If a new Zikula version is released, shortly thereafter — or ideally, at the same time — a new version of the generator is released. This allows one to create an updated version of the application anytime, conforming to the newest requirements, fixing bugs centrally and also supporting the newly introduced features.

So we can improve the generator gradually and thus improve the code quality of all applications based on it. With the validation features in ModuleStudio, model conformance is being ensured, representing a decisive step toward improving the quality of third party modules. Because of this, Zikula direct benefits from the model-driven approach.

With models it is also possible to test the affects of future changes in Zikula in advance, and thus to prepare any adaptations or changes in advance. Automated tests with different models provide the required quality control.

In the long term, when ModuleStudio has matured accordingly and creates production-level code for all required concerns, time-consuming certifications will no longer be needed.