Browsing by Subject "Meta-modeling"

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    Example-driven meta-model development
    (Springer, 2015) López Fernández, Jesús J.; Sánchez Cuadrado, Jesús; Guerra, Esther; de Lara, Jesús; Informática y Sistemas
    The intensive use of models in model-driven engineering (MDE) raises the need to develop meta-models with different aims, such as the construction of textual and visual modelling languages and the specification of source and target ends of model-to-model transformations. While domain experts have the knowledge about the concepts of the domain, they usually lack the skills to build meta-models. Moreover, meta-models typically need to be tailored according to their future usage and specific implementation platform, which demands knowledge available only to engineers with great expertise in specific MDE platforms. These issues hinder a wider adoption of MDE both by domain experts and software engineers. In order to alleviate this situation, we propose an interactive, iterative approach to meta-model construction, enabling the specification of example model fragments by domain experts, with the possibility of using informal drawing tools like Dia or yED. These fragments can be annotated with hints about the intention or needs for certain elements. A meta-model is then automatically induced, which can be refactored in an interactive way, and then compiled into an implementation meta-model using profiles and patterns for different platforms and purposes. Our approach includes the use of a virtual assistant, which provides suggestions for improving the meta-model based on well-known refactorings, and a validation mode, enabling the validation of the meta-model by means of examples.
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    When and How to Use Multilevel Modelling
    (ACM, 2014) de Lara, Juan; Guerra, Esther; Sánchez Cuadrado, Jesús; Informática y Sistemas
    Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) promotes models as the primary artefacts in the software development process, from which code for the final application is derived. Standard approaches to MDE (like those based on MOF or EMF) advocate a two-level metamodelling setting where Domain-Specific Modelling Languages (DSMLs) are defined through a metamodel that is instantiated to build models at the metalevel below. Multilevel modelling (also called deep metamodelling) extends the standard approach to metamodelling by enabling modelling at an arbitrary number of metalevels, not necessarily two. Proposers of multilevel modelling claim this leads to simpler model descriptions in some situations, although its applicability has been scarcely evaluated. Thus, practitioners may find it difficult to discern when to use it and how to implement multilevel solutions in practice. In this article, we discuss those situations where the use of multilevel modelling is beneficial, and identify recurring patterns and idioms. Moreover, in order to assess how often the identified patterns arise in practice, we have analysed a wide range of existing two-level DSMLs from different sources and domains, to detect when their elements could be rearranged in more than two metalevels. The results show this scenario is not uncommon, while in some application domains (like software architecture and enterprise/process modelling) pervasive, with a high average number of pattern occurrences per metamodel.