Domain-specific modeling

Last updated April 02, 2023

Domain-specific modeling (DSM) is a software engineering methodology for designing and developing systems, such as computer software. It involves systematic use of a domain-specific language to represent the various facets of a system.

Overview

Domain-specific modeling often also includes the idea of code generation: automating the creation of executable source code directly from the domain-specific language models. Being free from the manual creation and maintenance of source code means domain-specific language can significantly improve developer productivity.^[1] The reliability of automatic generation compared to manual coding will also reduce the number of defects in the resulting programs thus improving quality.

Domain-specific language differs from earlier code generation attempts in the CASE tools of the 1980s or UML tools of the 1990s. In both of these, the code generators and modeling languages were built by tool vendors.^{[ citation needed ]} While it is possible for a tool vendor to create a domain-specific language and generators, it is more normal for domain-specific language to occur within one organization. One or a few expert developers creates the modeling language and generators, and the rest of the developers use them.

Having the modeling language and generator built by the organization that will use them allows a tight fit with their exact domain and in response to changes in the domain.

Domain-specific languages can usually cover a range of abstraction levels for a particular domain. For example, a domain-specific modeling language for mobile phones could allow users to specify high-level abstractions for the user interface, as well as lower-level abstractions for storing data such as phone numbers or settings. Likewise, a domain-specific modeling language for financial services could permit users to specify high-level abstractions for clients, as well as lower-level abstractions for implementing stock and bond trading algorithms.

Topics

Defining domain-specific languages

To define a language, one needs a language to write the definition in. The language of a model is often called a metamodel, hence the language for defining a modeling language is a meta-metamodel. Meta-metamodels can be divided into two groups: those that are derived from or customizations of existing languages, and those that have been developed specifically as meta-metamodels.

Derived meta-metamodels include entity–relationship diagrams, formal languages, extended Backus–Naur form (EBNF), ontology languages, XML schema, and Meta-Object Facility (MOF). The strengths of these languages tend to be in the familiarity and standardization of the original language.

The ethos of domain-specific modeling favors the creation of a new language for a specific task, and so there are unsurprisingly new languages designed as meta-metamodels. The most widely used family of such languages is that of OPRR,^[2]^[3] GOPRR,^[4] and GOPPRR, which focus on supporting things found in modeling languages with the minimum effort.

Tool support for domain-specific languages

Many General-Purpose Modeling languages already have tool support available in the form of CASE tools. Domain-specific language languages tend to have too small a market size to support the construction of a bespoke CASE tool from scratch. Instead, most tool support for domain-specific language languages is built based on existing domain-specific language frameworks or through domain-specific language environments.

A domain-specific language environment may be thought of as a metamodeling tool, i.e., a modeling tool used to define a modeling tool or CASE tool. The resulting tool may either work within the domain-specific language environment, or less commonly be produced as a separate stand-alone program. In the more common case, the domain-specific language environment supports an additional layer of abstraction when compared to a traditional CASE tool.

Using a domain-specific language environment can significantly lower the cost of obtaining tool support for a domain-specific language, since a well-designed domain-specific language environment will automate the creation of program parts that are costly to build from scratch, such as domain-specific editors, browsers and components. The domain expert only needs to specify the domain specific constructs and rules, and the domain-specific language environment provides a modeling tool tailored for the target domain.

Most existing domain-specific language takes place with domain-specific language environments, either commercial such as MetaEdit+ or Actifsource, open source such as GEMS, or academic such as GME. The increasing popularity of domain-specific language has led to domain-specific language frameworks being added to existing IDEs, e.g. Eclipse Modeling Project (EMP) with EMF and GMF, or in Microsoft's DSL Tools for Software Factories.

Domain-specific language and UML

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a general-purpose modeling language for software-intensive systems that is designed to support mostly object oriented programming. Consequently, in contrast to domain-specific language languages, UML is used for a wide variety of purposes across a broad range of domains. The primitives offered by UML are those of object oriented programming, while domain-specific languages offer primitives whose semantics are familiar to all practitioners in that domain. For example, in the domain of automotive engineering, there will be software models to represent the properties of an anti-lock braking system, or a steering wheel, etc.

UML includes a profile mechanism that allows it to be constrained and customized for specific domains and platforms. UML profiles use stereotypes, stereotype attributes (known as tagged values before UML 2.0), and constraints to restrict and extend the scope of UML to a particular domain. Perhaps the best known example of customizing UML for a specific domain is SysML, a domain specific language for systems engineering.

UML is a popular choice for various model-driven development approaches whereby technical artifacts such as source code, documentation, tests, and more are generated algorithmically from a domain model. For instance, application profiles of the legal document standard Akoma Ntoso can be developed by representing legal concepts and ontologies in UML class objects.^[5]

Related Research Articles

The XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) is an Object Management Group (OMG) standard for exchanging metadata information via Extensible Markup Language (XML).

A modeling language is any artificial language that can be used to express information or knowledge or systems in a structure that is defined by a consistent set of rules. The rules are used for interpretation of the meaning of components in the structure Programing language.

Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is a software design approach for the development of software systems. It provides a set of guidelines for the structuring of specifications, which are expressed as models. Model Driven Architecture is a kind of domain engineering, and supports model-driven engineering of software systems. It was launched by the Object Management Group (OMG) in 2001.

A domain-specific language (DSL) is a computer language specialized to a particular application domain. This is in contrast to a general-purpose language (GPL), which is broadly applicable across domains. There are a wide variety of DSLs, ranging from widely used languages for common domains, such as HTML for web pages, down to languages used by only one or a few pieces of software, such as MUSH soft code. DSLs can be further subdivided by the kind of language, and include domain-specific markup languages, domain-specific modeling languages, and domain-specific programming languages. Special-purpose computer languages have always existed in the computer age, but the term "domain-specific language" has become more popular due to the rise of domain-specific modeling. Simpler DSLs, particularly ones used by a single application, are sometimes informally called mini-languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metamodeling</span> Concept of software engineering

A metamodel or surrogate model is a model of a model, and metamodeling is the process of generating such metamodels. Thus metamodeling or meta-modeling is the analysis, construction and development of the frames, rules, constraints, models and theories applicable and useful for modeling a predefined class of problems. As its name implies, this concept applies the notions of meta- and modeling in software engineering and systems engineering. Metamodels are of many types and have diverse applications.

Object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD) is a technical approach for analyzing and designing an application, system, or business by applying object-oriented programming, as well as using visual modeling throughout the software development process to guide stakeholder communication and product quality.

Model-driven engineering (MDE) is a software development methodology that focuses on creating and exploiting domain models, which are conceptual models of all the topics related to a specific problem. Hence, it highlights and aims at abstract representations of the knowledge and activities that govern a particular application domain, rather than the computing concepts.

Executable UML is both a software development method and a highly abstract software language. It was described for the first time in 2002 in the book "Executable UML: A Foundation for Model-Driven Architecture". The language "combines a subset of the UML graphical notation with executable semantics and timing rules." The Executable UML method is the successor to the Shlaer–Mellor method.

MagicDraw is a proprietary visual UML, SysML, BPMN, and UPDM modeling tool with team collaboration support.

MetaEdit+ is an environment for creating and using Domain-Specific Modeling languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eclipse Modeling Framework</span> Project of Eclipse Foundation

Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) is an Eclipse-based modeling framework and code generation facility for building tools and other applications based on a structured data model.

Generic Eclipse Modeling System (GEMS) is a configurable toolkit for creating domain-specific modeling and program synthesis environments for Eclipse. The project aims to bridge the gap between the communities experienced with visual metamodeling tools like those built around the Eclipse modeling technologies, such as the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) and Graphical Modeling Framework (GMF). GEMS helps developers rapidly create a graphical modeling tool from a visual language description or metamodel without any coding in third-generation languages. Graphical modeling tools created with GEMS automatically support complex capabilities, such as remote updating and querying, template creation, styling with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and model linking.

Knowledge Discovery Metamodel (KDM) is a publicly available specification from the Object Management Group (OMG). KDM is a common intermediate representation for existing software systems and their operating environments, that defines common metadata required for deep semantic integration of Application Lifecycle Management tools. KDM was designed as the OMG's foundation for software modernization, IT portfolio management and software assurance. KDM uses OMG's Meta-Object Facility to define an XMI interchange format between tools that work with existing software as well as an abstract interface (API) for the next-generation assurance and modernization tools. KDM standardizes existing approaches to knowledge discovery in software engineering artifacts, also known as software mining.

EAST-ADL is an Architecture Description Language (ADL) for automotive embedded systems, developed in several European research projects. It is designed to complement AUTOSAR with descriptions at higher level of abstractions. Aspects covered by EAST-ADL include vehicle features, functions, requirements, variability, software components, hardware components and communication. Currently, it is maintained by the EAST-ADL Association in cooperation with the European FP7 MAENAD project.

A metaCASE tool is a type of application software that provides the possibility to create one or more modeling methods, languages or notations for use within the process of software development. Often the result is a modeling tool for that language. MetaCASE tools are thus a kind of language workbench, generally considered as being focused on graphical modeling languages.

JetBrains MPS is a language workbench developed by JetBrains. MPS is a tool to design domain-specific languages (DSL). It uses projectional editing which allows users to overcome the limits of language parsers, and build DSL editors, such as ones with tables and diagrams.
It implements language-oriented programming. MPS is an environment for language definition, a language workbench, and integrated development environment (IDE) for such languages.

Model Driven Interoperability (MDI) is a methodological framework, which provides a conceptual and technical support to make interoperable enterprises using ontologies and semantic annotations, following model driven development (MDD) principles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Akoma Ntoso</span>

Akoma Ntoso (Architecture for Knowledge-Oriented Management of African Normative Texts using Open Standards and Ontologies) is an international technical standard for representing executive, legislative and judiciary documents in a structured manner using a domain specific, legal XML vocabulary.

A language workbench is a tool or set of tools that enables software development in the language-oriented programming software development paradigm. A language workbench will typically include tools to support the definition, reuse and composition of domain-specific languages together with their integrated development environment. Language workbenches were introduced and popularized by Martin Fowler in 2005.

References

↑ Kelly, S. and Tolvanen, J.-P., (2008) Domain-Specific Modeling: Enabling Full Code Generation, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey. ISBN 978-0-470-03666-2
↑ R.J. Welke. The CASE Repository: More than another database application. In W.W. Cotterman and J.A. Senn, editors, Proceedings of 1988 INTEC Symposium Systems Analysis and Design: A Research Strategy, Atlanta, Georgia, 1988. Georgia State University.
↑ Smolander, K., (1992) OPRR - A Model for Modeling Systems Development Methods. In: Next Generation CASE Tools (eds. K. Lyytinen, V.-P. Tahvanainen) IOS Press, Amsterdam, Netherlands, pp. 224-239.
↑ Kelly, S., Lyytinen, K., and Rossi, M., "MetaEdit+: A Fully Configurable Multi-User and Multi-Tool CASE Environment," Proceedings of CAiSE'96, 8th Intl. Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1080, Springer-Verlag, pp. 1-21, 1996. (in Ph.D. thesis as 3metools.pdf)
↑ Flatt, Amelie; Langner, Arne; Leps, Olof (2022). Model-Driven Development of Akoma Ntoso Application Profiles - A Conceptual Framework for Model-Based Generation of XML Subschemas (1st ed.). Heidelberg: Sprinter Nature. ISBN 978-3-031-14131-7.

External links

Domain-specific modeling for generative software development Archived 2010-01-31 at the Wayback Machine , Web-article by Martijn Iseger, 2010
Domain Specific Modeling in IoC frameworks Web-article by Ke Jin, 2007
Domain-Specific Modeling for Full Code Generation from Methods & Tools Web-article by Juha-Pekka Tolvanen, 2005
Creating a Domain-Specific Modeling Language for an Existing Framework Web-article by Juha-Pekka Tolvanen, 2006

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[dsmKelly-1] Kelly, S. and Tolvanen, J.-P., (2008) Domain-Specific Modeling: Enabling Full Code Generation, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey. ISBN 978-0-470-03666-2

[oprrWelke-2] R.J. Welke. The CASE Repository: More than another database application. In W.W. Cotterman and J.A. Senn, editors, Proceedings of 1988 INTEC Symposium Systems Analysis and Design: A Research Strategy, Atlanta, Georgia, 1988. Georgia State University.

[oprrSmolander-3] Smolander, K., (1992) OPRR - A Model for Modeling Systems Development Methods. In: Next Generation CASE Tools (eds. K. Lyytinen, V.-P. Tahvanainen) IOS Press, Amsterdam, Netherlands, pp. 224-239.

[GOPRR-4] Kelly, S., Lyytinen, K., and Rossi, M., "MetaEdit+: A Fully Configurable Multi-User and Multi-Tool CASE Environment," Proceedings of CAiSE'96, 8th Intl. Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1080, Springer-Verlag, pp. 1-21, 1996. (in Ph.D. thesis as 3metools.pdf)

[5] Flatt, Amelie; Langner, Arne; Leps, Olof (2022). Model-Driven Development of Akoma Ntoso Application Profiles - A Conceptual Framework for Model-Based Generation of XML Subschemas (1st ed.). Heidelberg: Sprinter Nature. ISBN 978-3-031-14131-7.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]