Mod4J: A Qualitative Case Study of Model-Driven Software Development

Model-driven software development (MDSD) has been on the rise over the past few years and is becoming more and more mature. However, evaluation in real-life industrial context is still scarce. In this paper, we present a case-study evaluating the applicability of a state-of-the-art MDSD tool, Mod4J, a suite of domain specific languages (DSLs) for developing administrative enterprise applications. Mod4J was used to partially rebuild an industrially representative application. This implementation was then compared to a base implementation based on elicited success criteria. Our evaluation leads to a number of recommendations to improve Mod4J. We conclude that having extension points for hand-written code is a good feature for a model driven software development environment

Formality: The Object Constraint Language and its Application in the UML Metamodel

Within the field of object technology it is becoming recognised that constraints are a good way to produce more precise and formal specifications than with diagrams alone. Evidence of this is that UML incorporates a standard constraint language called OCL (Object Constraint Language). The availability of OCL will encourage UML users to add constraints to their UML models. This paper explains OCL and demonstrates its applicability. Probably the largest application of OCL to date was its use to define the metamodel of UML, and the experiences gained in this application are discussed

Experience with Formal Specification of CMM and UML

A simple specification language (OCL) was used to specify and analyze metamodels and metametamodels as part of the OMG OOA&D standardization process. Significant benefits were seen from a small investment in “user-friendly” formality

Defining the Context of OCL Expressions

Expressions written in Object Constraint Language (OCL) within a UML model assume a context, depending upon where they are written. Currently the exact nature of this context is not fully defined. Furthermore there is no mechanism for defining the context for OCL expressions in extensions to UML. This paper defines the context of OCL expressions, and proposes precise and flexible mechanisms for how to specify this context

Defining UML Family Members using Prefaces

The Unified Modeling Language is extensible, and so can be regarded as a family of languages. Implicitly or explicitly, any particular UML model should be accompanied by a definition of the particular UML family member used for the model. The definition should cover syntactic and semantic issues. This paper proposes a mechanism for associating models with such definitions. Any particular definition would form what we call a preface. The name is intended to suggest that the definition of a particular UML family member must conceptually come before any model built using that family member. A preface would be large, and should be organised using packages. This would allow large amounts of sharing between different prefaces. The paper proposes that prefaces should have an axiomatic style of semantics, through not necessarily fully formal, and it offers a general approach to semantics that would reduce problems of inconsistency within a large preface, based on the idea of general cases and special case