Domain-Specific Modeling Environment for Developing Domain Specific Modeling Languages as Lightweight General Purpose Modeling Language Extensions

Abstract

Compared to General Purpose Modeling Languages (GPMLs), Domain Specific Modeling Languages (DSMLs) have brought increasing expressivity and conciseness through the use of concepts and notations, which are customized by the characteristics of a specific problem domain. However, the creation of completely new languages can significantly increase software development costs. An alternative approach to creating new DSMLs refers to a customization of existing modeling languages. The DSML creation process through a customization of existing languages is a special case of Language Embedding. The embedding provides customization of an inherited infrastructure to a given domain. This paper elaborates a Domain-Specific Modeling environment for embedding an arbitrary DSML into an arbitrary GPML. The environment enables uniform development of DSMLs in the form of a lightweight extension of existing modeling languages.