Model-Driven Development for End-Users, too!?

Elicitating the requirements and creating a model of a software system are standard activities in the development process of professional software development. The talk discusses whether these two development phases are also present in end-user software development and how they could look like. It is argued that one has to distinguish between at least two types of end-user software developers. Those, who are not professional software developers, but work in an engineering domain and follow stepwise development processes. They are used to have requirements specifications as well as models, too. But, non-professional, non-engineering end-users, e.g. spreadsheet developers, don\u27t and would not like to distinguish between different steps in the development process. Therefore, we propose to hide the distinction between these different steps by closely interconnecting requirements specification, models and code, and by putting them into one development box. By offering appropriate interface functions like create, adapt, refine, etc. to the box, the end-user is supported in developing software without being aware that he is undergoing a stepwise refinement process from requirements specifications towards concrete code

A Note on the Complexity of Sliding Shortest Paths

We address a shortest path problem in a given uncapacited and undirected network N=(V,E) with positive edge costs. In addition we are given a single source-destination pair (s,t), a shortest path p{st} connecting s and t and a new edge e =(p,q). The task is to find a minimum number of edges Ec and the minimum weight increase for each edge e in Ec such that the shortest path p{st} between s and t traverses edge e. We show that the problem is NP-hard and give a heuristic scheme for the problem

Towards Generalizing Visual Process Patterns

Visual Process Patterns (VPP) is a visual language to describe constraints on the behavior of UML Activities. They have been developed for the sake of formulating and verifying requirements on business process models in a visual, intuitive way (with UML Activities being one possible description language). In the VPP approach, a visual process pattern is translated into an LTL formula, which can then be verified against a transition system describing the behavior of the Activity under consideration. In this paper, we aim at generalizing VPP. We show how to formulate patterns more generally, using an enhanced version of the concrete syntax of the behavioral model under consideration. Additionally, we describe how these more general patterns can be verified against a modelâs behavior

A Note on the Complexity of Sliding Shortest Paths

We address a shortest path problem in a given uncapacited and undirected network N=(V,E) with positive edge costs. In addition we are given a single source-destination pair (s,t), a shortest path p{st} connecting s and t and a new edge e =(p,q). The task is to find a minimum number of edges Ec and the minimum weight increase for each edge e in Ec such that the shortest path p{st} between s and t traverses edge e. We show that the problem is NP-hard and give a heuristic scheme for the problem

Enhancing Robot Programming through Digital Twin and Augmented Reality

Nowadays, robots are widespread across diverse application contexts. However, robot programming is a cumbersome and error-prone task that requires a high domain and programming expertise. To simplify the process of robot programming, we combine Augmented Reality (AR) with the concept of Digital Twin (DT). By combining them, the robot system can be simulated through a digital equivalent representation while the real environment is extended with useful virtual artifacts. To enable users to work in the robot space, reducing the amount of mentally taxing coordinate space conversions, we have developed the DT- and AR-based robot programming framework, called DART. DART supports users to program a robot through interactive gestures, offers AR in-place program simulation, and direct building of finished programs to the real robot. We evaluated our AR-based programming approach regarding usability compared to a web-based robot programming approach. The evaluation showed that our approach is more usable than the conventional method and has the potential to enrich and ease current robot programming processes

Test-driven Language Derivation with Graph Transformation-Based Dynamic Meta Modeling

Deriving a new language L_B from an already existing one L_A is a typical task in domain-specific language engineering. Here, besides adjusting L_A's syntax, the language engineer has to modify the semantics of L_A to derive L_B's semantics. Particularly, in case of behavioral modeling languages, this is a difficult and error-prone task, as changing the behavior of language elements or adding behavior for new elements might have undesired side effects. Therefore, we propose a test-driven language derivation process. In a first step, the language engineer creates example models containing the changed or newly added elements in different contexts. For each of these models, the language engineer also precisely describes the expected behavior. In a second step, each example model and its description of behavior is transformed into an executable test case. Finally, these test cases are used when deriving the actual semantics of L_B - at any time, the language engineer can run the tests to verify whether the changes he performed on L_A's semantics indeed produce the desired behavior. In this paper, we illustrate the approach using our graph transformation-based semantics specification technique Dynamic Meta Modeling. This is once more an example where the graph transformation approach shows its strengths and appropriateness to support software engineering tasks as, e.g., model transformations, software specifications, or tool development

Ergebnisbericht des Jahres 2001 des Projektes MuSofT Multimedia in der SoftwareTechnik

Das Vorhaben MuSofT - Multimedia in der Softwaretechnik wird seit dem 1. März 2001 vom Bundesministerium für Buildung und Wissenschaft im Rahmen des Programms Neue Medien in der Bildung gefördert. An diesem Vorhaben nehmen die folgenden Hochschulen teil: Fachhochschule Lübeck, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Universität Paderborn, Universität Dortmund, Universität Siegen, Universität Stuttgart und die Universität der Bundeswehr in München. Wir haben uns in diesem Projekt vorgenommen, die Ausbildung in der Softwaretechnik an den Stellen, an denen es sinnvoll erscheint, durch den Einsatz Neuer Medien zu nterstützen. Das Vorhaben wird bis zum Ende des Jahres 2003 laufen. Mit dieser Sammlung wollen wir nach etwa einjähriger Laufzeit die ersten Projektergebnisse vorstellen. Wir haben uns im Zeitplan des Projekts vorgenommen, gründlich über die verwendeten Konzepte und Lehrinhalte nachzudenken, die Frage der Plattformen gerade am Anfang nicht auszuklammern, aber auch zu überlegen, wie wir die Nachhaltigkeit unserer Entwicklungen schon während der Projektarbeit sichern können. Das alles und noch viel mehr ist in den Beiträgen dieser Sammlung diskutiert. Um von der Struktur gleichförmige Beiträge zu bekommen, haben wir eine grobe Gliederung vorgegeben, um gleichförmige Qualität zu erreichen, haben wir die Beiträge intern begutachten lassen; die Ergebnisse der Begutachtung sind in die vorliegenden Darstellungen eingeflossen

Coverage Criteria for Testing DMM Specifications

Behavioral modeling languages are most useful if their behavior is specified formally such that it can e.g. be analyzed and executed automatically. Obviously, the quality of such behavior specifications is crucial. The rule-based semantics specification technique Dynamic Meta Modeling (DMM) honors this by using the approach of Test-driven Semantics Specification (TDSS), which makes sure that the specification at hand at least describes the correct behavior for a suite of test models. However, in its current state TDSS does not provide any means to measure the quality of such a test suite.In this paper, we describe how we have applied the idea of test coverage to TDSS. Similar to common approaches of defining test coverage criteria, we describe a data structure called invocation graph containing possible orders of applications of DMM rules. Then we define different coverage  criteria based on that data structure, taking the rule applications caused by the test suite’s models into account. Our implementation of the described approach gives the language engineer using DMM a means to reason about the quality of the language’s test suite, and also provides hints on how to improve that quality by adding dedicated test models to the test suite

Situational Business Model Developer: A Tool-support for Situation-specific Business Model Development

The development of business models is a challenging task that can be supported with software tools. Here, existing approaches and tools do not focus on the company’s situation in which the development takes place (e.g., financial resources, product type). To tackle this challenge, we used design science research to develop a situation-specific business model development approach that contains three stages: First, existing knowledge in terms of tasks to do (e.g., analyze competitive advantage), and decisions to be made (e.g., social media marketing) are stored in repositories. Second, the knowledge is used to compose a development method based on the company’s situation. Third, the development method is enacted to develop a business model. This demonstration paper presents a tool-support called Situational Business Model Developer that supports all stages of our approach. We release the tool under open-source and evaluate it with a case study on developing business models for mobile apps