Leveraging Model Driven Engineering in Software Product Line Architectures

Abstract

Model Driven Engineering (MDE) is a new innovation in the software industry that has proven to work synergistically with Software Product Line Architectures. It can provide the tools necessary to fully harness the power of Software Product Lines. The major players in the software industry including commercial companies such as IBM, Microsoft, standards bodies including the Object Management Group and leading Universities such as the ISIS group at Vanderbilt University are embracing this MDE/PLA combination fully. IBM is spearheading the Eclipse Foundation including its MDE tools like EMF, GEF and GMF. Microsoft has launched there Software Factories foray into the MDE space.  

The goal of this tutorial is to educate attendees on what MDE technologies are, how exactly they relate synergistically to Product Line Architectures, and how to actually apply them using an existing Eclipse implementation.

The process of Developing Software Product Line Architectures can be a complex task. However, the use of Model Driven Engineering (MDE) techniques can facilitate the development of SPLAs by introducing Domain Specific Languages, Graphical Editors, and Generators. Together these are considered the sacred triad of MDE. Key to understanding MDE and how it fits into SPLAs is to know exactly what each part of the trinity means, how it relates to the other parts, and what the various implementations are for each. This tutorial will demonstrate the use of the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) and Eclipse's Graphical Editor Framework (GEF) to create an actual MDE solution as applied to a sample SPLA. When building Graphical Modeling Languages using GEF and EMF one may find themselves worrying about specific implementation details related to EMF or GEF. To address this issue, the Eclipse community has created a generative bridge between EMF and GEF called The Graphical Modeling Framework (GMF). During this tutorial we will also illustrate how to model the visual artifacts of our Domain Model and generate a Domain Specific Graphical Editor using GMF.

Presenter: Bruce Trask

Bruce Trask has been working on complex Distributed Real-Time Embedded systems for over 20 years specializing in SPL and MDE as applied to these systems in the last 7 years.  He has been teaching C++, Object Orientation, Design Patterns, UML, CORBA and Framework courses for over 10 years.   He has lead multiple study groups in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut area on various topics ranging from design patterns to middleware.  He is a regular speaker/presenter at software industry conferences all year long.  He has devlivered tutorials at the OMG.  Bruce Trask is the CEO of MDE Systems.

Presenter:Angel Roman

Angel Roman is the Chief Software Architect of MDE Systems and an expert on the Eclipse Development environment and its application frameworks. He has presented at various industry conferences on topics such as Software Defined Radios and MDE Technologies.