Template based model engineering in UML

Vanwormhoudt, Gilles; Allon, Mathieu; Caron, Olivier; Carré, Bernard

doi:10.1145/3365438.3410988

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Indeed, the capabilities and potential of UML templates are far-reaching. As such, increasing awareness around them could bring considerable benefits for UML users, namely in what concerns model reuse, to increase the productivity of system design and improve model quality via early checking, by the reuse of proved models [42]. Despite these benefits, we are aware that the use of UML templates introduces a higher level of abstraction and complexity and, therefore, challenges related to learnability and understandability, which may inhibit or prevent beginner modelers from using them in practice, without proper training.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some researchers have discussed techniques to represent these patterns directly using UML or using UML extensions for patterns (like UML profiles) [38], [39], and few directly with UML templates [40], [41]. For instance, Sunyé discussed the representation of patterns with a former version of UML in which templates were named ''parameterized collaborations'' [40] and Vanwormhoudt et al with the current version of UML [30], [42]. Vanwormhoudt et al show how to use UML templates to represent pattern-and aspect-oriented modelling focused on aspectual templates.…”

Section: E Related Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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UML Templates Distilled

Farinha¹,

Silva

2022

IEEE Access

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UML templates are possibly the most neglected and misused piece of knowledge in UML modelling. This subject has been disregarded in the research and practice literature and even by modelling tools providers. This paper suggests that such oblivion results from a general misunderstanding that UML templates are just graphical representations of genericity like it is found in programming languages, and from the insufficient support from the modelling tools, with a consequence of poor usage of UML templates in practice. Indeed, the capabilities and potential of UML templates are far-reaching. Increasing awareness around them could bring significant benefits for UML users, namely, higher-level abstraction and reuse. Therefore, this paper provides a distilling tutorial on UML templates to highlight their flexibility and advantages. That presentation follows a tutorial style and is supported by several illustrative examples, varying from simpler to more complex ones. This tutorial reviews the Template construct's core concepts and terminology, presents constraining classifiers and shows how to define properties and operations as template parameters. Then, it presents and discusses advanced aspects such as operation templates, parameter defaults, the relationship between binding and generalization, and the specific semantics of package templates. Furthermore, the paper discusses the related work and uncovers some of the UML templates' limitations and opportunities for improvement.INDEX TERMS Object-oriented modelling, genericity, UML, templates, UML templates.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: E Related Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

UML Templates Distilled

Farinha¹,

Silva

2022

IEEE Access

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“…The distinguishing feature between OSTRICH and MetaDepth is the verification of model conformance. In the latter and other UML approaches [16,40], model conformance is performed on the instances after parameter substitution. OSTRICH checks conformance statically by verifying the template and its arguments at compile-time.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…UML templates Templates in UML [29] address model reuse through the concepts of abstraction and parametrisation [22], with some variants proposed and instantiated in EMF-based tools [6,40,41]. UML templating allows for the substitution of parameters and cloning model elements to produce other diagrams.…”

Section: Program Synthesis and Live Programmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…OSTRICH templates follow an approach similar to other model-driven low-code programming approaches, like templates in UML (MOF) [28,40,41] and MetaDepth [11], where templates are instantiated in place by an external mechanism. In OSTRICH, even though the instantiation algorithm in [23,24] is embedded into the behavior of the development environment; nevertheless, it is not a part of the semantics of the language.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Going beyond templates: composition and evolution in nested OSTRICH

Costa Seco,

Lourenço,

Parreira

et al. 2024

Softw Syst Model

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Low-code frameworks strive to simplify and speed up application development. An essential mechanism to achieve these goals is to have native support for the safe reuse and usage of parameterized coarse-grain components, providing developers with strong guardrails and a rich software-building experience. —a rich template language for the OutSystems platform—was designed to simplify the use and creation of such components. Thus, the application developer can quickly reuse and assemble sophisticated and thoroughly tested application blocks. However, without a built-in composition and evolution mechanism, templates are still hard to create and maintain. This sometimes requires the repetition of code across different templates and creates a conflict between the customizations of the instantiated application models, and the update and reapplication of a template definition. This paper presents a principled mechanism for using abstraction in the creation of templates and simultaneously supporting the evolution of templates in applications after use. First, we introduce a template composition mechanism, its typing discipline, and its instantiation algorithm for model-driven low-code development environments. We start by extending to support nested templates and allow the instantiation (hatching) of templates in the definition of other templates. Nesting promotes a significant increase in code reuse potential, leading to a safer evolution of applications. We then introduce the support for customizable template instances, which allows one to evolve templates’ code and then update a template instance without losing customizations performed in the generated code. The present definition seamlessly extends the existing OutSystems metamodel with template constructs expressed by model annotations that maintain backward compatibility with the existing language toolchain. We present the metamodel, a set of annotations to support the extensions, and the corresponding validation and instantiation algorithms. In particular, we introduce a type-based validation procedure for abstractions that ensures that using templates always produces valid models. This work also extends prior developments on Nested OSTRICH with the support for safe customizations of instantiated code. We validate Nested OSTRICH using the benchmark by identifying the degree of reusability that can be reached in the existing sample of real templates and template uses. Our prototype is an extension of the OutSystems IDE that allows the annotation of models and their use to produce new models. We also analyze which existing OutSystems sample screen templates can be improved by using and sharing nested templates .

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