Extending Deep Meta-Modelling for Practical Model-Driven Engineering

Abstract

Meta-modelling is one of the pillars of Model-Driven Engineering (MDE), where it is used for language engineering and domain modelling. Even though the current trend is the use of two-level meta-modelling frameworks, several researchers have pointed out limitations of this scheme for some scenarios and suggested a metamodelling approach with an arbitrary number of meta-levels in order to obtain more flexible and simpler system descriptions. Unfortunately, such multi-level meta-modelling systems are still in their infancy, lacking for example, integration with model manipulation languages, a characterization of different possibilities for instantiation and inheritance, and primitives for interconnecting multi-level languages in a flexible way. In this paper, we propose a number of extensions to multi-level (also called deep) meta-modelling, based on the needs raised by its use for practical MDE. In particular, we discuss on the issues related to code generation from deep languages, the benefits of allowing inheritance at every meta-level, and patterns and techniques for a fine-grain control of the meta-level of elements. Finally, we provide primitives to control the impedance mismatch when connecting models at different meta-levels.

Dual Deep Instantiation and Its ConceptBase Implementation

“…The practical experiences with MetaDepth [19] fit well with our own findings. They also recognized the need to relate objects at different meta-levels and do so by deep references.…”

A formalisation of deep metamodelling

“…The work in [ADP09] proposes a deep metamodelling framework which extends the basic notion of clabject for handling connector inheritance and instantiation. METADEPTH [dG10,dGCML13] is a deep metamodelling framework which supports potency, double linguistic/ontological typing and linguistic extension.…”

“…Deep metamodelling was proposed in the seminal works of Atkinson and Kühne [AK02b], and several researchers and tools have subsequently adopted this approach [ADP09,AM09,dG10,dGCML13]. However, there is still a lack of formalisation of the main concepts of deep metamodelling such as deep characterisation through potency, double linguistic/ontological typing and linguistic extension [dG10].…”

Model-driven engineering with domain-specific meta-modelling languages

“…MetaDepth [12,14,15] is a multi-level meta-modelling tool that supports textual modelling and implements deep characterization through potency. Listing 1 shows the definition of our DSMM language for domainspecific process models in MetaDepth.…”

“…In this case, there is only one attribute that will contain the name of the model. The attributes for event types are defined in lines 11-23, first the common attributes to all tasks (lines 12-13) and then the extensions declared at level 1 (lines [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. In particular, line 16 iterates on all nonabstract tasks at level 1 using SLevel1!…”