About the journal

• Home page
• Contact information
• Aims and scope
• Indexing information
• Editorial policies
• ComSIS consortium
• Journal boards
• Managing board

For authors

• Information for contributors
• Paper submission
• Article submission through OJS
• Copyright transfer form
• Download section

For readers

• Forthcoming articles
• Current issue
• Archive

For reviewers

• View and review submissions

News

• Journal's Facebook page
• Calls for special issues
• New issue notification

DOI:10.2298/CSIS110114012B

Challenges and Directions in Formalizing the Semantics of Modeling Languages

Barrett R. Bryant¹, Jeff Gray², Marjan Mernik³, Peter J. Clarke⁴, Robert B. France⁵ and Gabor Karsai⁶

1. Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham
   Birmingham, Alabama 35294-1170, USA
   bryant@cis.uab.edu
2. Department of Computer Science, University of Alabama
   Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0290, USA
   gray@cs.ua.edu
3. Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Maribor
   2000 Maribor, Slovenia
   marjan.mernik@uni-mb.si
4. School of Computing and Information Sciences, Florida International University
   Miami, Florida 33199, USA
   clarkep@cis.fiu.edu
5. Computer Science Department, Colorado State University
   Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1873, USA
   france@cs.colostate.edu
6. Institute for Software-Integrated Systems, Vanderbilt University
   Nashville, Tennessee 37235, USA
   gabor.karsai@vanderbilt.edu

Abstract

Developing software from models is a growing practice and there exist many model-based tools (e.g., editors, interpreters, debuggers, and simulators) for supporting model-driven engineering. Even though these tools facilitate the automation of software engineering tasks and activities, such tools are typically engineered manually. However, many of these tools have a common semantic foundation centered around an underlying modeling language, which would make it possible to automate their development if the modeling language specification were formalized. Even though there has been much work in formalizing programming languages, with many successful tools constructed using such formalisms, there has been little work in formalizing modeling languages for the purpose of automation. This paper discusses possible semantics-based approaches for the formalization of modeling languages and describes how this formalism may be used to automate the construction of modeling tools.

Key words

model-based tools, modeling languages, semantics.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.2298/CSIS110114012B

Publication information

Volume 8, Issue 2 (May 2011)
Advances in Formal Languages, Modeling and Applications
Year of Publication: 2011
ISSN: 2406-1018 (Online)
Publisher: ComSIS Consortium

Full text

Available in PDF
Portable Document Format

How to cite

Bryant, B. R., Gray, J., Mernik, M., Clarke, P. J., France, R. B., Karsai, G.: Challenges and Directions in Formalizing the Semantics of Modeling Languages. Computer Science and Information Systems, Vol. 8, No. 2, 225-253. (2011), https://doi.org/10.2298/CSIS110114012B