The Andromda project just released version 2 of their tool. According to their website Andromda is an open source code generation framework that follow the model driver architecture (MDA) paradigm. It’s a nice tool which will generate j2ee code based on xml diagrams saved as xmi files. So you can design your application in an UML tool (e.g., poseidon), save the diagrams, and then use andromda to generate your application.
This is all very usefull ofcourse, but how’s this different than UML tools which generate code? What exactly makes this MDA? As i see it, one of the important characteristics of MDA is that is has models on different levels, and you’ll have tool based support to keep these models in sync. The three levels in MDA are PIM, platform independent model, PSM, platform specific model, and the implementation. Currently the combination of Poseidon (or a similar UML tool) and Andromda seems to be missing the PIM level.
Ofcourse, if you know j2ee and uml, and you just want to be more productive, the combination of a UML tool and Andromda might be exactly what you need.