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https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2019/flexmde_intro.pdf
3rd Workshop on Flexible Model Driven
Engineering (FlexMDE 2017)
Juan De Lara1 , Davide Di Ruscio2 , Alfonso Pierantonio2
1
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain
2
DISIM, University of l’Aquila, Italy
Abstract—FlexMDE 2017 was the 3rd edition of the workshop In the 3rd edition, FlexMDE received 11 submissions, of
on Flexible Model Driven Engineering, held on September 18th , which 9 papers were accepted for publication and presentation
2017 as a satellite event of the ACM/IEEE 20th International during the workshop. The workshop hosted Benoit Combe-
Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages & Systems
(MODELS), Austin, Texas (USA). The goal of this workshop male as invited speaker and overall, 25 participants attended
was to bring together researchers and practitioners in order to the workshop, resulting in a lively, highly interactive event.
exchange innovative technical ideas and experiences related to The workshop’s program comprised of one full day of
flexibility in modeling. The 3rd edition of the FlexMDE workshop activities which were split into 3 sessions, summarized below.
provided a forum to discuss successful applications of agile
processes and model-driven engineering techniques and to gain
insights into challenges related to the flexible adoption of model-
II. S ESSION 1: F LEXIBLE MODELLING I
driven techniques and tools. The first session of the workshop hosted an invited talk
given by Prof. Benoit Combemale from University of Toulouse
I. I NTRODUCTION (France), titled Sound Yet Flexible Modeling: A Language
Engineering Point of View. During the talk, Benoit presented
Over the last years, several modeling platforms have been
a sound yet flexible model type system to support various
developed to simplify and automate many steps of Model
scenarios of flexible modeling, mostly in connection with
Driven Engineering (MDE) processes. However, still several
reusability. Different existing approaches were outlined with
challenges have to be solved for enabling a wider adoption of
the aim of showing how they provide flexibility to language
MDE. One of the most important impediments in adopting
users. The Concern-Oriented Language Development (COLD)
MDE tools is related to the reduced flexibility of existing
initiative was also presented as a full-fledged unifying ap-
modeling platforms that do not permit to relax or enforce their
proach for language reuse.
rigidity depending on the stages of the applied development
process. For instance, EMF does not permit to enter models After the invited speaker, the session had the first paper
which are not conforming to a metamodel. On one hand this presentation of the event given by Nicolas Hili, entitled The
allows only valid models to be defined, but on the other, Conformance Relation Challenge: A Guideline for Building
it makes the corresponding pragmatics more difficult. Thus, Flexible Modelling Frameworks. Nicholas presented an at-
there is an increasing need for techniques supporting flexibility tempt to give a unified view of flexibility in MDE. In partic-
in a wide range of modeling activities, including metamodel, ular, he focused on the conformance flexibility (related to the
model, and model transformation development and reuse. abstract syntax) in terms of two orthogonal and complemen-
tary dimensions i.e., specificity of semantics, and time/phase
In order to tackle these challenges, the FlexMDE series of
of flexibility.
workshops started in 2012 under the name of XM (“eXtreme
Modelling”). XM was held for three editions, which in 2015
III. S ESSION 2: F LEXIBLE MODELLING II
continued under the name of FlexMDE. All editions have
been held as satellite events of the MODELS conference. The second session hosted 4 paper presentations as summa-
More information about the workshop series can be found rized in the following.
at http://www.di.univaq.it/flexmde/. Along these 6 years, we Yentl Van Tendeloo presented the work titled Explicitly
have published special issues associated with the workshop Modelling the Type/Instance Relation consisting of an ap-
on the Journal of Object Technology [1] and the Computer proach enabling meta-meta-models and semantics to be added
Languages Systems & Structures Journal (Elsevier) [2]. and manipulated at runtime with the aim of solving the
The primary goal of the workshop is to identify the dif- growing important problem of tool interoperability.
ficulties in the current practice of MDE related to the lack The second presentation of the session was given by Alfonso
of flexibility. FlexMDE encourages contributions of ideas, Pierantonio about Enhancing Flexibility in User Interaction
concepts, and techniques also from other areas of software Modeling by Adding Design Uncertainty to IFML. Alfonso
development which could be useful to revise certain MDE fun- presented an approach to enable the compact specification
damental typing concepts, and to define agile model sketching of design alternatives by adopting a model for uncertainty,
techniques. integrated with a model for the user interaction design. The
approach permits modelers to resolve uncertainty by integrat- agile methods to develop Cyber-Physical Systems. In partic-
ing the results of user behavior analysis. Overall, the proposed ular, the presenter shown initial results of the study that the
approach permits developers to reduce the costs of the user authors did to identify the challenges faced when adopting an
interaction optimization. agile process to design CPS.
Alfa Yohannis presented the third paper of the session The third presentation of the session was titled A Process
titled Turning Models Inside Out. The presentation was about for Integrating Agile Software Development and Model-Driven
an approach for change-based model persistence as opposed Development and given by Hessa Alfraihi, who proposed
to state-based one. The strengths and the limitations of the a comprehensive process integrating Agile development and
tool were discussed by showing also the currently available Model Driven Development. A case study to evaluate the
implementation of the approach, which is on top of the Eclipse application of the proposed process was also reported.
Modelling Framework. The last presentation of the session and of the event was
The last presentation of the session was given by Hessa given by Levi Lucio and titled Process-Aware Model-Driven
Alfraihi about Agile model-driven engineering of financial Development Environments. The presenter shown how Model
applications. The presentation was about the adoption of Driven Development environments can become process-aware,
Microsoft Excel as a Model Driven Development front-end to assist the user when building a model by means of the
for the specification and development of financial applications adopted domain specific languages.
in a rigorous manner.
V. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
IV. S ESSION 3: AGILE PROCESSES
We thank the many people who contributed to the sucess
Four paper presentations were hosted in the third and last of FlexMDE’17: the authors and the attendees, the invited
session of the workshop as described in the following. speakers, and the program committee. We hope to be able
The first presentation was titled Practical Aspects of The to come together for FlexMDE’18 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Integration of Agile Development and Model-Driven Develop-
ment: An Exploratory Study and was given by Hessa Alfraihi. R EFERENCES
The presenter discussed the outcomes of a study done by the [1] D. D. Ruscio, A. Pierantonio, and J. de Lara, “Extreme modelling (xm)
authors to investigate the state of practice of integrating Agile 2012 special section,” Journal of Object Technology, vol. 13, no. 3, Jul.
2014, (editorial). [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.5381/jot.2014.13.
development methods and Model Driven Development. The 3.e1
study found that although both approaches gained considerable [2] D. D. Ruscio, J. de Lara, and A. Pierantonio, “Special issue on
attentions by practitioners, the state of practice is not yet flexible model driven engineering,” Computer Languages, Systems
& Structures, vol. 49, pp. 174–175, 2017. [Online]. Available:
mature. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cl.2016.12.003
Hans Vangheluwe presented the work titled Towards Agile
Model-Based Systems Engineering to discuss the adoption of