In MDE, numerous artifacts, including models, editors (with concrete syntaxes), transformation, code generators, and analysis tools, are built on top of metamodels. Like any other piece of software, metamodels are prone to changes, and whenever such changes occur, they might compromise the validity of the related artifacts. To restore the validity of models, editors, transformations, and others, several techniques have been proposed over the years.
A modeling ecosystem based on a metamodel
A survey on the co-evolution of metamodel and models can be found here
- Hebig, R., Khelladi, D. E., & Bendraou, R. (2018). Reporting on a Survey on Approaches to Co-Evolution of Metamodels and Models. Software Engineering und Software Management 2018.
while below there are the papers covering several aspects I wrote with: Davide Di Ruscio, Ludovico Iovino, Juri Di Rocco, Romina Eramo and others:
- Cicchetti, A., Di Ruscio, D., Eramo, R., & Pierantonio, A. (2008, September). Automating co-evolution in model-driven engineering. In 2008 12th International IEEE Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference (pp. 222-231). IEEE.
- Cicchetti, A., Di Ruscio, D., & Pierantonio, A. (2009, June). Managing dependent changes in coupled evolution. In International Conference on Theory and Practice of Model Transformations (pp. 35-51). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
- Iovino, L., Pierantonio, A., & Malavolta, I. (2012). On the Impact Significance of Metamodel Evolution in MDE. J. Object Technol., 11(3), 3-1.
- Di Ruscio, D., Lämmel, R., & Pierantonio, A. (2010, October). Automated co-evolution of GMF editor models. In International Conference on Software Language Engineering (pp. 143-162). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
- Di Ruscio, D., Iovino, L., & Pierantonio, A. (2011, June). What is needed for managing co-evolution in mde?. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Model Comparison in Practice (pp. 30-38).
- Di Ruscio, D., Iovino, L., & Pierantonio, A. (2012, September). Evolutionary togetherness: how to manage coupled evolution in metamodeling ecosystems. In International Conference on Graph Transformation (pp. 20-37). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
- Wagelaar, D., Iovino, L., Di Ruscio, D., & Pierantonio, A. (2012, May). Translational semantics of a co-evolution specific language with the EMF transformation virtual machine. In International Conference on Theory and Practice of Model Transformations (pp. 192-207). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
- Di Ruscio, D., Iovino, L., & Pierantonio, A. (2012). Coupled evolution in model-driven engineering. IEEE software, 29(6), 78-84.
- Di Ruscio, D., Iovino, L., & Pierantonio, A. (2013, June). A methodological approach for the coupled evolution of metamodels and atl transformations. In International Conference on Theory and Practice of Model Transformations (pp. 60-75). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
- Cicchetti, A., Di Ruscio, D., Eramo, R., & Pierantonio, A. (2008). Meta-model differences for supporting model co-evolution. In Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Model-Driven Software Evolution-MODSE (Vol. 1, No. 10).
- Di Rocco, J., Di Ruscio, D., Iovino, L., & Pierantonio, A. (2014, September). Dealing with the Coupled Evolution of Metamodels and Model-to-text Transformations. In ME@ MoDELS (pp. 22-31).
- Di Ruscio, D., Iovino, L., & Pierantonio, A. (2013, September). Managing the coupled evolution of metamodels and textual concrete syntax specifications. In 2013 39th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (pp. 114-121). IEEE.
- Cicchetti, A., Ciccozzi, F., Leveque, T., & Pierantonio, A. (2011, June). On the concurrent versioning of metamodels and models: challenges and possible solutions. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Model Comparison in Practice (pp. 16-25).
- Di Rocco, J., Iovino, L., & Pierantonio, A. (2012, October). Bridging state-based differencing and co-evolution. In Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Models and Evolution (pp. 15-20).
- Di Rocco, J., Di Ruscio, D., Narayanankutty, H., & Pierantonio, A. (2018). Resilience in Sirius Editors: Understanding the Impact of Metamodel Changes. In MODELS Workshops (pp. 620-630).