GReTA seminar #39: "Composing Executable Domain-Specific Modelling Languages"
Channel: GReTA Seminar
Date: 27/01/2023

Speaker:

Steffen Zschaler (Department of Informatics, King's College London, UK)


Abstract:

Domain-specific modelling languages (DSMLs) are “little” languages that are developed for a particular domain of interest and allow capturing descriptions of problems and systems in terminology close to that domain. So-called executable DSMLs (xDSMLs) come with a high-level specification of their semantics, often as an operational semantics, so that models expressed in the xDSML can be executed directly. Graph transformations are one mechanism that can be used to capture such semantics. A challenge with xDSMLs is that a new such language needs to be developed for every new domain, making the approach potentially costly. If we were able to better reuse existing xDSMLs, we could bring the cost of language development down. One area where this is particularly interesting is in the specification and analysis of non-functional properties of systems (eg, performance properties). In this talk, I will show how such properties can be modularised into their own xDSML and how these language modules can be woven into a given base xDSML via the amalgamation of graph transformation systems. I will give an overview of the concepts and some interesting properties, and will then show GTSMorpher, a tool implementing these ideas in the Eclipse ecosystem.


About the GReTA seminars:

The GReTA – Graph TRansformation Theory and Applications virtual seminar series aims to serve as a platform for the international graph rewriting community, to promote recent developments and trends in the field, and to permit a regular networking and interaction between members of this community. Seminars are held twice a month in the form of Zoom sessions (some of which will be live-streamed to YouTube). Please refer to http://www.irif.fr/~greta for further details (including information on how to register for participating in the Zoom meetings).