Raising the Abstraction of Domain-Specific Model Translator Development

Model-based development methodologies are gaining ground as software applications are getting more and more complex while the pressure to decrease time-to-market continually increase. Domain-specific modeling tools that support system analysis, simulation, and automatic code generation can increase productivity. However, most domain-specific model translators are still manually written. This paper presents a technique that automatically generates a domain-specific application programming interface from the same metamodels that are used to define the domain-specific modeling language itself. This facilitates the creation of domain-specific model translators by providing a high-level abstraction hiding all the cumbersome modeling tool-specific implementation details from the developer. The approach is illustrated using the generic modeling environment and the Microsoft .NET C# language.