Domain-specific modeling

Abstract: Looking at other engineering disciplines, it is evident that modeling is a vital and important part of the development of complex artifacts. Good modeling techniques provide support for the separation of concerns principle, rigorous analysis of designs, and for structuring construction activities. Models can play a similar role in the development of software-based systems. Furthermore, the software development activity has a characteristic not present in physical engineering: deliverable products (software systems) can be generated from models (an observation made by Bran Selic, IBM/Rational at an MDA summer school). This characteristic can and should be exploited in our quest to make software development an engineering activity. The current landscape of modeling languages is highly diverse. Graphical languages, such as Petri Nets and Statecharts have successfully been used for years. Standardized languages such as the SDL have had a good base of tool support but have seen their use in industry diminish over time. Languages can be specific to an application domain (e.g., SDL was developed to support modeling of telecommunication systems), to a development phase (e.g., SCR method uses a language designed specifically for modeling requirements of reactive systems), or they can be general-purpose (e.g., the UML). Recently, much attention is on the development of domain-specific languages (DSLs). Proponents of DSLs claim that their use can help bridge the gap between a domain expert’s view of a software system and its implementtion. The domains covered by DSLs can range from highly individual application areas, such as “railroad planning applications” to broader domains, such as the “embedded system domain”. The UML was at first an attempt to unify various object-oriented modeling languages, and it seemed that its target applications were primarily business systems. The UML is now being used to model applications and concepts in a variety of domains, including embedded systems and business workflows. While this broadened the scope of the UML it has made it difficult to develop semantics that can be used to support its application in a number of domains. This has led to the realization that a single, consistent semantics that supports the use of the UML may not be possible, and to the view of the UML as a family of languages. There are currently a number of semantic variation points in the UML to support this notion. Developing a semantic framework for the UML that takes into consideration its numerous variation points is proving to be an extremely difficult task – and the important issues are not all technical! It should not be surprising then that in specific domains, the use of existing “domain specific languages” persists. A DSL, let it be a programming or a modeling language, has several advantages. Among them:

Abstract: MetaEdit+ is an environment that allows building modeling tools and generators fitting to application domains, without having to write a single line of code. The capability to define modeling tools and generators is relevant as it provides the ability to raise the abstraction of design work from code to domain concepts, and a raise in abstraction leads to an imminent raise in productivity, as illustrated by the past years' experiences.In domain-specific modeling and MetaEdit+, one expert defines a domain-specific language as a metamodel containing the domain concepts and rules, and specifies the mapping from that to code in a domain-specific code generator. For the method implementation, MetaEdit+ provides a metamodeling language and tool suite for defining the method concepts, their properties, associated rules, symbols, checking reports, and generators. Once the expert defines a modeling method, or even a partial prototype, the rest of the team can start to use it in MetaEdit+ to make models with the modeling language and the required code is automatically generated from those models. Based on the metamodel, MetaEdit+ automatically provides CASE tool functionality: diagramming editors, browsers, generators, multi-user/project/platform support, etc.The MetaEdit+ demo will focus on showing how the domain-specific languages and generators are made; complete with several examples of domain-specific methods and related code generators.

Abstract: The paper presents WebGME, a novel, web- and cloud-based, collaborative, scalable (meta)modeling tool that supports the design of Domain Specific Modeling Languages (DSML) and the creation of cor- responding domain models. The unique prototypical inheritance, origi- nally introduced by GME, is extended in WebGME to fuse metamodel- ing with modeling. The tool also introduces novel ways to model cross- cutting concerns. These concepts are especially useful for multi-paradigm modeling. The main design drivers for WebGME have been scalability, extensibility and version control. The web-based architecture and the constraints the browser-based environment introduces provided signif- icant challenges that WebGME has overcome with balanced trade-os. The paper describes the architecture of WebGME, argues why the major design decisions were taken and presents the novel features of the tool.