A Technique for Metamodeling Diagram Types with Tool Support

Abstract

Some domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs) use different diagram types but these are not explicitly included in metamodels. The definition of diagram types is an increasing demand for some computer-aided software engineering tools for DSMLs. The current work presents a technique that allows designers to define diagram types of DSMLs with metamodels in a straightforward and tool-supported way. This technique also facilitates the processing of models when some elements appear in several diagrams, by including a single dictionary of all the entities and their relationships. The presented technique is supported with a novel tool called diagram-type editor tool (DTET). DTET receives input from a DSML metamodel and allows designers to define a set of diagram types with a graphical user interface. Then, DTET generates a metamodel with these diagram-type definitions. For the evaluation, 39 testers from five different countries (Spain, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Ecuador and France) experienced the presented approach and other alternatives, measuring the times of definition and the numbers of mistakes. The results show that the presented technique and DTET are faster and less error-prone for the definition of diagram types than the alternatives with statistically significant differences.