NII-Internship program proposal: Evolution of modeling languages and models

1. NII-Internship program proposal:Evolution of modeling languages and models Submitted by: BUI TAN LOC NII Supervisor: Professor ZHENJIANG HU FIT Supervisor : Dr. TRAN HANH NHI

2. Content • MDE • Models Evolution and Synchronization • Research on Model Evolution and Synchronization at NII • Motivation • Internship Objective • Research plan

3. 1. MDE – Model-Driven Engineering We don't want anymore to pay such a high price for simply moving our information system to a new middleware platform (COM, CORBA, Java, HTML, XML, DotNet, etc.) when our business system stays stable. We are prepared to pay a last price for building the abstract models of our business and services that will guarantee us against technological obsolescence. From there, any platform provider will also have to provide the mapping solutions from standard business models before we buy. The origins of MDE PIM: Platform Independent Model PSM: Platform Specific Model PSM: Platform Specific Model PSM: Platform Specific Model PSM: Platform Specific Model Platforms: Web Services, ebXML, J2EE/EJB, CORBA, MS .Net, …

4. M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 Software development considered as a chain of model transformations Analysis Design Code 4 7 PIM PSM Code model 2 5 1 3 6

5. Java!Class UML!Class name = “Book” comment = “” name = “Book” description = “a demo class” Java!Field UML!Attribute Java!Field UML!Attribute name = “_title” type = “String” name = “title” type = “String” name = “_price” type = “Double” name = “price” type = “Double” An example of transformation • Models need to be evolved [1]. • One of Models Evolution topics is transformation technique for evolving models including restructuring, refactoring, migration and translation.

6. Java!Class name = “Book” comment = “_bookTitle cannot be null” UML!Class name = “Book” description = “a demo class” UML!Attribute Java!Field UML!Attribute UML!Attribute Java!Field name = “title” type = “String” name = “_title” type = “String” name = “price” type = “Double” name = “_price” type = “Double” name = “authors” type = “String” 2. Models Evolution and Synchronization problem _bookTitle Simply performing the UML2Java transformation again is not adequate because the modifications on the Java model will be lost

7. Existing Approaches • General Framework: • Model Synchronization Through Traceability [2] • Basic Incremental Transformation [3] • Correspondence Construction [4] • Rely on users to write code to handle each type of modifications in each side • It is users who should ensure the consistency of the code • Specific Languages: • Synchronization tools: Rational Rose • Feature model to code synchronization

8. Restrictions • No clear semantics for model synchronization in the context where a model transformation is formally given. • Cannot work well here, because they require users to explicitly write synchronization code to deal with each type of modification on each type of model. • The methods should be able to deal with general model transformations described in general transformation languages.

9. 3. Research on Model Evolution and Synchronization at NII • Professor Zhenjiang Hu’s team proposes a type of synchronization called state-based synchronization. • The first result of his team was a model synchronization tool called SyncATL [5]. • Professor Hu proposed a topic on “Developing a tool for supporting synchronization of PIM and PSM models” for the 2011 NII internship program

10. Their contributions • A clear semantics of model synchronization • Four properties • Stability • Preservation • Propagation • Composibility • An automatic model synchronization approach • Using the existing unidirectional ATL byte code program • Requiring no extra code • Satisfying the four properties • A prototype tool for synchronizing EMF models

11. Their evaluations

12. Their restrictions • Can not deal with all types of insertions in the target side. • The current implementation of SyncATL is mainly served as a demonstration and an evaluation of the approach we proposed in their paper [5], and is not stable enough for serious use.

13. 4. Motivation Task model • An example of models in my master thesis - “Building a user interface system on mobile devices in the direction of model-based” AUI model • Models need to be evolved • => Models Evolution and Synchronization problem

14. 4. Motivation (cont.) • Apply SynATL for my master thesis

15. 5. Internship Objective • An internship on the model evolution topic proposed by Professor Hu will be very useful for me. • Via a stay at NII, I hope to obtain a solid background on the subject of model evolution, explore the possibility to apply the models synchronization solution of Professor Hu’s team to improve my master solution for MDE user interface for mobile devices. • I hope to the acquired knowledge will be deep enough to allow me to identify a research plan for my future Ph.D work

16. 6. Research plan • 1st month: study the models evolution and synchronization problem. • 2nd month: study the state-based synchronization approach used by the professor Hu’s team and experiment the SyncATL tool. Then, I’ll evaluate the applicability of SyncATL tool propose additional extensions. • 3rd to 5th month: propose a paradigm and implement the extension of SyncATL. • 6th month: validate the implementation and write report.

17. Q&A Thanks