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Using internal domain-specific languages to inherit tool support and modularity for model transformations

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Abstract

Model-driven engineering (MDE) has proved to be a useful approach to cope with today’s ever-growing complexity in the development of software systems; nevertheless, it is not widely applied in industry. As suggested by multiple studies, tool support is a major factor for this lack of adoption. In particular, the development of model transformations lacks good tool support. Additionally, modularization techniques are inevitable for the development of larger model transformations to keep them maintainable. Existing tools for MDE, in particular model transformation approaches, are often developed by small teams and cannot keep up with advanced tool support for mainstream general-purpose programming languages, such as IntelliJ or Visual Studio. Internal DSLs are a promising solution to these problems. In this paper, we investigate the impact of design decisions of an internal DSL to the reuse of tool support and modularization concepts from the host language. We validate our findings in terms of understandability, applicability, tool support, and extensibility using three case studies from academia, a model-driven engineering platform, and the industrial automation domain where we apply an implementation of an internal model transformation language on the .NET platform. The results confirm the value of inherited modularity and tool support while conciseness and understandability are still competitive.

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Notes

  1. The choice of a textual languages such as Java or C\(^\sharp \) as host languages for a model transformation language inevitably leads to a textual model transformation language. Even from the early days on, there has always been a demand for graphical model transformation languages [49]. However, as the success of textual model transformation languages [29, 31], but also the experience with graphical languages [64] imply, textual model transformations may be better suited for certain kinds of problems.

  2. http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jvms/se7/html/index.html.

  3. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8bs2ecf4.

  4. http://www.osgi.org.

  5. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hk5f40ct.

  6. Many external transformation languages also allow the integration of code written in other languages such as Java and therefore may include parts of an existing programming model.

  7. We see it as one of the base functionalities of a model transformation language that the trace is built up implicitly. The only question is whether the transformation developer sees the trace or not.

  8. For example, mappings in QVT operational are divided into init, population, and end sections.

  9. The usage of the IDE when writing model transformations may differ from the usage in regular programming tasks. Thus, the share of code completion commands could be lower. Nevertheless, we think that code completion in particular is also important for model transformation developers.

  10. Technologies such as Xtext may help by making it easier to implement code completion for an external DSL.

  11. https://eclipse.org/Xtext/.

  12. Technologies such as the modular compiler Roslyn (https://roslyn.codeplex.com) give internal languages the chance to enrich the host language compiler. In the contrary direction, technologies such as Xbase [8] make it possible to use general-purpose language compilers in external DSLs.

  13. The concept of transformation rule templates has originally been introduced by Varró [54]. However, since then, it has not been adopted very often.

  14. http://github.com/NMFCode/NMF.

  15. https://www.opcfoundation.org/UA/.

  16. The reason to compare the solution with a general-purpose code solution instead of for example an external model transformation solution is that this would have been the most likely alternative in that particular case.

  17. https://www.opcfoundation.org/.

  18. https://www.opcfoundation.org/UA/.

  19. An overview of certified SDKs from different vendors is available at https://opcfoundation.org/products.

  20. http://www.eclipse.org/xtend/.

  21. http://www.eclipse.org/xtend/.

  22. The approaches described here have been compiled in the related work section of [43] and have been adapted from there.

  23. https://eclipse.org/Xtext/documentation/306_mwe2.html, retrieved 1 August 2016.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik, Haid-und-Neu-Straße 10-14, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Georg Hinkel

  2. ABB Corporate Research, Wallstadter Straße 59, 68526, Ladenburg, Germany

    Thomas Goldschmidt

  3. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Am Fasanengarten 5, 76131, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Erik Burger & Ralf Reussner

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  1. Georg Hinkel
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Correspondence to Georg Hinkel.

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Communicated by Dr. F. Ciccozzi, J. Carlson, P. Pelliccione and M. Tivoli.

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Hinkel, G., Goldschmidt, T., Burger, E. et al. Using internal domain-specific languages to inherit tool support and modularity for model transformations. Softw Syst Model 18, 129–155 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-017-0578-9

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