A Metamodel Composition Driven Approach to Design New Domain Specific Modeling Languages
Anas Abouzahra, Ayoub Sabraoui, Karim Afdel · 2017
Designing a new domain specific modeling language is a complex and consuming task job effort. One solution is to compose existing DSMLs to form a new more complete DSML. Based on a metamodels composition we can improve the process of rapid prototyping of new DSMLs. In this paper we investigate the consequences of composing metamodels of DSMLs on their graphical syntaxes. Our motivation is to upgrade the quick development of graphical editors for a new DSML formed by the composition of multiple DSMLs metamodels. We explain how the DSMLs can be reused to rapidly form new ones with low cost. Thus, this work contributes by defining a set of rules to compose DSMLs and provide a layer for DSMLs graphical syntaxes composition. We propose three rules to compose DSMLs metamodels: reference, specialization and fusion. We have used a small use case to illustrate the approach. For each defined rule we apply it to the use case to exemplify it. We expose, throughout these examples, how graphical syntaxes can be reused. We also show on how graphical editors can be composed.