A Catalog of Reusable Design Decisions for Developing UML/MOF-based Domain-specific Modeling Languages

In model-driven development (MDD), domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs) act as a communication vehicle for aligning the requirements of domain experts with the needs of software engineers. With the rise of the UML as a de facto standard, UML/MOF-based DSMLs are now widely used for MDD. This paper documents design decisions collected from 90 UML/MOF-based DSML projects. These recurring design decisions were gained, on the one hand, by performing a systematic literature review (SLR) on the development of UML/MOF-based DSMLs. Via the SLR, we retrieved 80 related DSML projects for review. On the other hand, we collected decisions from developing ten DSML projects by ourselves. The design decisions are presented in the form of reusable decision records, with each decision record corresponding to a decision point in DSML development processes. Furthermore, we also report on frequently observed (combinations of) decision options as well as on associations between options which may occur within a single decision point or between two decision points. This collection of decision-record documents targets decision makers in DSML development (e.g., DSML engineers, software architects, domain experts).Series: Technical Reports / Institute for Information Systems and New Medi

Flexible Views for View-based Model-driven Development

Modern software development faces the problem of fragmentation of information across heterogeneous artefacts in different modelling and programming languages. In this dissertation, the Vitruvius approach for view-based engineering is presented. Flexible views offer a compact definition of user-specific views on software systems, and can be defined the novel ModelJoin language. The process is supported by a change metamodel for metamodel evolution and change impact analysis

SWEL: A domain-specific language for modeling data-intensive workflows

Data-intensive applications aim at discovering valuable knowledge from large amounts of data coming from real-world sources. Typically, workflow languages are used to specify these applications, and their associated engines enable the execution of the specifications. However, as these applications become commonplace, new challenges arise. Existing workflow languages are normally platform-specific, which severely hinders their interoperability with other languages and execution engines. This also limits their reusability outside the platforms for which they were originally defined. Following the Design Science Research methodology, the paper presents SWEL (Scientific Workflow Execution Language). SWEL is a domain-specific modeling language for the specification of data-intensive workflows that follow the model-driven engineering principles, covering the high-level definition of tasks, information sources, platform requirements, and mappings to the target technologies. SWEL is platform-independent, enables collaboration among data scientists across multiple domains and facilitates interoperability. The evaluation results show that SWEL is suitable enough to represent the concepts and mechanisms of commonly used data-intensive workflows. Moreover, SWEL facilitates the development of related technologies such as editors, tools for exchanging knowledge assets between workflow management systems, and tools for collaborative workflow development

Coupled model transformations for QoS enabled component-based software design

This thesis presents the Palladio Component Model and its accompanying transformations for component-based software design with predictable performance attributes. The use of transformations results in a deterministic relationship between the model and its implementation. The introduced Coupled Transformations method uses this relationship to include implementation details into predictions to get better predictions. The approach is validated in several case studies showing the increased accuracy

Architecture-based Evolution of Dependable Software-intensive Systems

This cumulative habilitation thesis, proposes concepts for (i) modelling and analysing dependability based on architectural models of software-intensive systems early in development, (ii) decomposition and composition of modelling languages and analysis techniques to enable more flexibility in evolution, and (iii) bridging the divergent levels of abstraction between data of the operation phase, architectural models and source code of the development phase

An approach to architecture-centric domain-specific modelling and implementation for software development and reuse.

Model-driven development has been considered to be the hope of improving software productivity significantly. However, it has not been achieved even after many years of research and application. Models are only and still used at the analysis and design stage, furthermore, models gradually deviate from system implementation. The thesis integrates domain-specific modelling and web service techniques with model-driven development and proposes a unified approach, SODSMI (Service Oriented executable Domain-Specific Modelling and Implementation), to build the executable domain-specific model and to achieve the target of model-driven development. The approach is organised by domain space at architectural level which is the elementary unit of the domain-specific modelling and implementation framework. The research of SODSMI is made up of three main parts: Firstly, xDSM (eXecutable Domain-Specific Model) is proposed as the core construction for domain-specific modelling. Behaviour scenario is adopted to build the meta-modelling framework for xDSM. Secondly, XDML language (eXecutable Domain-specific Meta-modelling Language) is designed to describe the xDSM meta-model and its application model. Thirdly, DSMEI (Domain-Specific Model Execution Infrastructure) is designed as the execution environment for xDSM. Web services are adopted as the implementation entities mapping to core functions of xDSM so as to achieve the service-oriented domain-specific application. The thesis embodies the core value of model and provides a feasible approach to achieve real model-driven development from modelling to system implementation which makes domain-specific software development and reuse coming true

Efficiently Conducting Quality-of-Service Analyses by Templating Architectural Knowledge

Previously, software architects were unable to effectively and efficiently apply reusable knowledge (e.g., architectural styles and patterns) to architectural analyses. This work tackles this problem with a novel method to create and apply templates for reusable knowledge. These templates capture reusable knowledge formally and can efficiently be integrated in architectural analyses

Adaptive object-modeling : patterns, tools and applications

Tese de Programa Doutoral. Informática. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201