Framework for the Rapid Development of Modeling Environments

Abstract

This chapter introduces the concepts and techniques required for developing graphical, domain-specific modeling and program synthesis environments. It argues that a fully functional modeling environment can be quickly developed for a wide variety of engineering domains using a configurable and extensible toolset with a limited set of generic concepts. The configuration is accomplished through metamodels specifying the modeling language and methodology containing all syntactic, semantic and presentation information of the domain. The authors applied this approach to several real-world systems.