|
Abstract : |
An Aspect-Oriented (AO) approach can be beneficial at different stages of the software lifecycle and at various levels of abstraction. Whenever the description of a software artifact exhibits crosscutting structure, the principles of modularity espoused by AO offer a powerful technology for supporting separation of concerns. We have found this to be true especially in the area of domain-specific modeling [3]. In domain-specific modeling, a design engineer describes a system by constructing a model using the terminology and concepts from a specific domain. Analysis can then be performed on the model, or the model can be synthesized into an implementation. At the Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) at Vanderbilt University, we implement this approach using a core tool- the Generic Model Editor (GME). The GME is a modeling environment that can be configured and adapted from meta-level paradigm specifications [8]. In using the GME, a modeler loads a domain, implemented with a meta-level paradigm, into the tool. This provides an environment containing all of the modeling elements and valid relationships that can be constructed in a model. This specific approach to domainspecific modeling has been successfully applied in several different domains, including automotive manufacturing [7], digital signal processing [11], and electrical utilities. In one particular domain-specific paradigm that we have created for re-configurable systems, a modeler may deploy constraints (we use a variant of the OCL to specify system properties [12]) to capture application specific rules. In, |
