Softw Syst Model (2006) 5:231–232DOI 10.1007/s10270-006-0028-6

GUEST EDITORIAL

Guest Editorial to the Special Issue on Language Engineeringfor Model-Driven Software Development

Jean Bézivin · Reiko Heckel

Published online: 10 August 2006© Springer-Verlag 2006

Model-driven approaches to software development re-quire precise definitions and tool support for model-ling languages, their syntax and semantics, consistency,refinement and transformation. In order to supportmodel-driven development for a variety of applicationcontexts and platforms, efficient ways of designing lan-guages are needed, accepting that languages are evolv-ing and that tools need to be delivered in a timely fash-ion. In this respect, languages are not unlike software: Adiscipline of language engineering is required to supporttheir design, implementation, verification and valida-tion, delivering languages of high quality at low cost.

An important contribution of any engineeringapproach, besides the actual technology provided, is themeta knowledge about how different technologies arerelated and for which classes of problems theyprovide solutions. Well-known examples of such tech-nologies, used by contributions in this special issue,include UML/MOF-based metamodelling, graph trans-formation, algebra and logic, data base technology, etc.

This special issue, published in two sections in thisand the next volume of this journal, presents six contri-butions from two scientific events.

• The Dagstuhl Seminar 04101 on Language Engi-neering for Model-Driven Software Development.

• The Workshop on Graph Transformation and VisualModelling Techniques (GT-VMT) 2004.

J. Bézivin (B)INRIA & University of Nantes, Nantes, Francee-mail: Jean.Bezivin@univ-nantes.fr

R. HeckelUniversity of Leicester, Leicester, UKe-mail: reiko@mcs.le.ac.uk

The Dagstuhl Seminar discussed problems and solu-tions of language engineering in order to learn fromexamples presented by the participants and attempt aprovisional classification and mapping. Three papersdocument the results of this work. Due to space limi-tations the first two, by Königs et al and Kühne, will bepublished in the next volume of this journal.

• In MDI — a rule-based multi-document and tool inte-gration approach by Alexander Königs and AndySchürr, the authors present a MOF-compliant modeltransformation language and tool based on triplegraph grammars, in reply to the OMG’s QVT (query,view, transformation) initiative.

• In Matters of (meta-) modeling, Thomas Kühne anal-yses basic notions of model-driven development suchas “model” and “metamodel”, contributing to thefundamental terminology of the domain by identi-fying different kinds of relations between models.

• Definition and validation of model transformationsby Jochen Küster focusses on the analysis of modeltransformations for properties such as terminationand confluence, making sure that transformationsare well-defined.

The Workshop on Graph Transformation and VisualModelling Techniques focussed on the foundations andapplications of graph transformation, one of the under-lying technologies of many model transformation ap-proaches. In this special issue they are represented bythree contributions.

• In The design of a language for model transfor-mations, Aditya Agrawal, Gabor Karsai, Sandeep

232 J. Bézivin, R. Heckel

Neema, Feng Shi and Attila Vizhanyo introducea transformation language for model-to-model andmodel-to-code translations based on graph transfor-mation and metamodelling.

• Verifying object-based graph grammars: an assume-guarantee approach by Fernando Luís Dotti, LeilaRibeiro, Osmar Marchi dos Santos and Fábio Pasinidescribes the use of graph transformation for mod-elling and verifying reactive systems using the SPINmodel checker.

• In Implementing a graph transformation engine inrelational databases,Gergely Varró, Katalin Friedl,

and Dániel Varró introduce an efficient implemen-tation for the transformation of large models usingstandard database technology.

In the design and implementation of modellinglanguages there is an increasing synergy between gram-mar-based and metamodel-based approaches. This isespecially true for the emerging field of domain-specific transformation languages, to which many of thesolutions in this special issue make a contribution.