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Comparing and classifying model transformation reuse approaches across metamodels

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Abstract

Model transformations are essential elements of model-driven engineering (MDE) solutions, as they enable the automatic manipulation of models. MDE promotes the creation of domain-specific metamodels, but without proper reuse mechanisms, model transformations need to be developed from scratch for each new metamodel. In this paper, our goal is to understand whether transformation reuse across metamodels is needed by the community, evaluate its current state, identify practical needs and propose promising lines for further research. For this purpose, we first report on a survey to understand the reuse approaches used currently in practice and the needs of the community. Then, we propose a classification of reuse techniques based on a feature model and compare a sample of specific approaches—model types, concepts, a-posteriori typing, multilevel modeling, typing requirement models, facet-oriented modeling, mapping operators, constraint-based model types, and design patterns for model transformations—based on this feature model and a common example. We discuss strengths and weaknesses of each approach, provide a reading grid used to compare their features, compare with community needs, identify gaps in current transformation reuse approaches in relation to these needs and propose future research directions.

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Notes

  1. http://melange.inria.fr/.

  2. http://metadepth.org.

  3. http://sanchezcuadrado.es/projects/bento/.

  4. http://metadepth.org/mtl.

  5. https://github.com/hergin/DelTaEMF.

  6. http://github.com/MDEGroup/totem.

  7. It must be noted that constraint-based model types were proposed before typing requirements models (2014 vs 2017), which take inspiration from that work.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all participants in the survey for their support, and to all participants in the 1st workshop on Unifying Software Reuse at Bellairs for their feedback on the feature model. This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science (RTI2018-095255-B-I00) and the Madrid Region (S2018/TCS-4314).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IRIT, University of Toulouse, Toulouse, France

    Jean-Michel Bruel

  2. Inria, University of Toulouse, Toulouse, France

    Benoit Combemale

  3. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Esther Guerra & Juan de Lara

  4. Inria, CNRS, IRISA, University of Rennes, Rennes, France

    Jean-Marc Jézéquel

  5. McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Jörg Kienzle, Gunter Mussbacher & Hans Vangheluwe

  6. Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada

    Eugene Syriani

  7. University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    Hans Vangheluwe

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Communicated by Dr. Jesús Sánchez Cuadrado and Arend Rensink.

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Bruel, JM., Combemale, B., Guerra, E. et al. Comparing and classifying model transformation reuse approaches across metamodels. Softw Syst Model 19, 441–465 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-019-00762-9

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