Enabling tool reuse and interoperability through model-driven engineering

Issue title: Special Supplement Issue in Section A and B: Selected Papers from the ISCA International Conference on Software Engineering and Data Engineering, 2009

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Demirezen, Zekai^{a; *} | Sun, Yu^a | Gray, Jeff^b | Jouault, Frédéric^c

Affiliations: [a] Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA | [b] Department of Computer Science, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA | [c] AtlanMod (INRIA & EMN) Nantes, France

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author. E-mail: zekzek@cis.uab.edu, yusun@cis.uab.edu.

Abstract: Software components provide a wide range of functionality that can be used across several domains. In some cases, reuse at a very coarse level of granularity (e.g., reusing functionality provided within an existing tool) is desirable, but challenging to realize due to the interface boundaries of the tool and the unanticipated level of reuse. This paper describes our results in applying model-driven engineering (e.g., domain-specific modeling and model transformation) to the tool reuse problem. Our approach captures the essence of each tool in a metamodel and uses model transformations to map between the tool representations. Specifically, we describe our results in reusing the graphical layout functionality provided by one tool (e.g., GraphViz) that does not exist natively in another tool (e.g., the Eclipse Graphical Modeling Framework).

Keywords: Domain-specific modeling, tool interoperability, model transformation

DOI: 10.3233/JCM-2010-0278

Journal: Journal of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering, vol. 10, no. s2, pp. S187-S202, 2010