Model-Driven Evolution of Software Architectures - Software and ...
Model-Driven Evolution of Software Architectures - Software and ...
Model-Driven Evolution of Software Architectures - Software and ...
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168 Chapter8. Visualisation<strong>of</strong>DSMLs<br />
(DSMLs). FromDSMLmodelscodeisgeneratedforaparticulars<strong>of</strong>tware<br />
platform. DSMLshavebeendevelopedforvarioustypes<strong>of</strong>domains,such<br />
ass<strong>of</strong>twareengineering(e.g.,s<strong>of</strong>twarearchitecture[Medvidovic<strong>and</strong>Taylor,1997])<strong>and</strong>applicationdomains(e.g.,insuranceproducts[Doyleetal.,<br />
2006]).<br />
In general, the use <strong>of</strong> DSMLs has clear advantages over the use <strong>of</strong><br />
general-purposelanguages(GPLs)[VanDeursen<strong>and</strong>Klint,1998].Morein<br />
particular,inthecontext<strong>of</strong>MDE,ourexperienceinindustrialcasestudies<br />
(seeChapters5<strong>and</strong>7)indicatesthattheuse<strong>of</strong>aGPL,suchastheUnified<br />
<strong>Model</strong>ingLanguage 1 (UML),leadsto(unnecessary)complexmodeltransformations,forinstancetogeneratecode.Assuch,theintroduction<strong>of</strong>MDE<br />
typicallyrequiresthedevelopment<strong>of</strong>DSMLs.<br />
Althoughmechanismsareavailabletodefine<strong>and</strong>implementtheabstractsyntax<strong>of</strong><br />
DSMLs,suchastheMetaObjectFacility 2 (MOF)<strong>and</strong>the<br />
Eclipse<strong>Model</strong>ingFramework 3 (EMF),notmuchsupportisavailableforthe<br />
definition<strong>of</strong>theirgraphicalnotation(concretesyntax). Asaresultdevelopment<strong>of</strong>adequategraphicaleditors<strong>and</strong>visualisationsrequiresconsiderableeffort.<br />
Forsomes<strong>of</strong>twareengineeringtasks,sucheditorsarenotrequired.For<br />
instance,developerscanuseatextualsyntaxforthecreation<strong>of</strong>models<br />
thatcansubsequentlybeprocessedbymodeltransformationtools. However,othertasks,suchasdocumentation,dorequiresomeform<strong>of</strong>graphical<br />
representation.Itisthisproblemthatmotivatesthischapter.<br />
Thebasicidea<strong>of</strong>thischapterissimple:whendevisinganewDSMLwe<br />
trytoleverageexistingvisualnotations<strong>and</strong>modellingtools. Wepropose<br />
toexp<strong>and</strong>thetypicalMDEprocessinwhichabstractmodelsaregradually<br />
transformedintocode,with(partial)generation<strong>of</strong>documentation.Tothis<br />
endwecombinetheuse<strong>of</strong>DSMLsforcodegeneration<strong>and</strong>otherautomated<br />
s<strong>of</strong>twareengineeringtasks,withtheuse<strong>of</strong>UMLfordocumentation.TheapproachusesmodeltransformationstospecifythemappingbetweenDSMLs<br />
<strong>and</strong> UML. Thediagramscorrespondingtotheresulting UMLmodels,as<br />
visualisedby<strong>of</strong>f-the-shelfUMLtools,areusedinthedocumentation. To<br />
investigatetheargumentsfor<strong>and</strong>againstthisidea,westudyhow<br />
•thisapproachworksforvariousarchitecturalviews;<br />
• UMLcanbeusedasthetargetlanguageforvisualisingtheseviews;<br />
<strong>and</strong><br />
•modeltransformationscanbeusedtospecify<strong>and</strong>automatethemapping.<br />
1 http://www.uml.org(June2007)<br />
2 http://www.omg.org/m<strong>of</strong>(June2007)<br />
3 http://www.eclipse.org/emf(June2007)