Towards Modeling Patterns for Embedded Software Industry: Feedback from the Field

Abstract

The analysis, design, implementation and testing of software for embedded systems are not trivial. Software modeling is a commonly used approach in the embedded software industry to manage complexity of these phases. The modeling approaches vary since the characteristics of modeling such as its purpose, the medium type used, the lifecycle phase used, differ among systems and industrial sectors. Our previous research identified and defined the modeling approach patterns in embedded software development projects based on quantitative data. In this paper, to validate and improve the pre-investigated pattern set, we present a series of semi-structured interviews over eight months with 53 embedded software professionals across a variety of target industrial sectors and roles. With the help of these interviews, the different modeling approach patterns in embedded software development were better understood and the hidden patterns not evident in the previous study were identified along with a documentation of personalized modeling experiences. Keywords-Software modeling; model driven engineering (MDE); characteristics of a diagram; embedded software; patternI. 1 The "hidden patterns" are the patterns of the participants, who do not know exactly their software modeling characteristics (especially about their modeling rigor and modeling language). They are unaware whether they use software modeling or MDE.

A survey on modeling and model-driven engineering practices in the embedded software industry

“…As observed in [18], UML is not so popular for prescriptive modeling since its semantics is not exactly defined and this would hamper the automatic translation towards other models. We also found that in model-driven approaches, it is not so important to have a graphical syntax to represent the model (as in UML), but these models should be represented in a format that is readable by a machine (as in DSL) [66]. This also supports our findings on "DSL"s.…”

“…Then, we focused to fill one major part of the gap in the existing literature by identifying and defining modeling approach patterns in embedded software industry. In order to improve what we found out from this survey result (e.g., quantitative data), we conducted a series of semi-structured interviews over eight months with 53 embedded software professionals to get more personalized, qualitative data [66]. Based on these findings, we created a characterization model, which identifies and defines a modeling stakeholder's pattern and culture as commonsense practices by presenting what the similar profiles is doing while modeling (via the database constructed with survey data presented in this study) [78].…”

“…The results are presented in Figure 16. Notice that there is no categorization on modeling approach (i.e., for sketches, model-based or model-driven) while answering this question; therefore there is no distinction for either descriptive or prescriptive modeling [66]. The survey in [21] reported similar results as that dataset stated that models are mainly used for subsystem/component design, implementation, system architecture, and testing.…”

“…We investigated that some modeling stakeholders (mainly, systems engineers, whose responsibilities are cross-cutting with both hardware and software components of the system) use modeling (especially with sequence and activity diagrams) to convey the communication among the entities in a given system: Their purpose is a quick communication and explaining a scenario among both hardware and software stakeholders' of the system. If all modules' communications/interactions are well-depicted in a complete diagram with the necessary inputs (e.g., message interfaces) during a system scenario, every SE roles can understand the corresponding scenario without looking at the "textual description" of it, which might cause some misinterpretation; hence they could save time and effort by getting rid of unnecessary meetings between stakeholders [66]. By this way, modeling via "visualisation" creates a common language for embedded software development [78].…”

Utilizing Modeling Approach Patterns in the Embedded Software Industry

“…Therefore, there was a need to validate and improve this preliminary version. As a second step, we improved these quantitative results with a deeper and more qualitative strategy via in-depth interviewing over eight months with 53 embedded software professionals across a variety of target industrial sectors and roles [10]. As a result, the set of patterns were extended to 12 patterns, where the final set is given in Table 1 [10].…”