Parameterized Transformation Schema for a Non-Functional Properties Model in the Context of MDE

The Mde View Of Software Development Process

The model-driven engineering software view of software development has its roots in a general method to represent the details of the system in some kind of formalism (model) focused mainly on software and hardware issues and then through a chains of transformations to obtain a software system encoded in some execution platform.

The concept of model as a key artifact in the software development is widely accepted. However this term is often overused and misused. A definition of model term could be found in (ModelWare, 2007).

Def. Model: “formal representation of entities and relationships (abstraction) with some correspondence (isomorphism) to the real world for some purpose (pragmatism).”

Many models have been proposed in software development, but not all are formal. This variety of informal models has contributed to make more difficult tracking of consistence between models.

The transformation process promoting by MDE could be shown in the following idealized sequence

In this scheme of transformations chain M1, M2, ..., Mn are design models of software system at several details or levels (formalization) of abstraction and t represents any correspondence or association between elements of different models implied in the process. Ideally, this transformation is hierarchical by the different levels of abstraction (isomorphism).