Is Bidirectionality Important?

Stevens, Perdita

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-92997-2_1

Cited by 8 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…We show how to adapt the formalism of the sound and optimal incremental build system pluto 1 [9] to this setting, appropriately combining use of the orientation model with encapsulated decisions about how to update each model. 5. We demonstrate that a soundness result and an incrementality result can then (with care) be derived using those proved in [9], and we discuss the relevance of these results in an MDD setting.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…However, typically, these models are not perfectly independent: a change in one may necessitate a change in another. These factors are identified as the "essence of bidirectionality" in [5]. Today, restoring such models to a consistent state is often done manually.…”

Section: Towards Applying Build System Work In Mddmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…unnecessary to recompile it. 5 Therefore, we might be able to save rebuild effort by deciding that a stamp on a file should be computed ignoring the comments, so that changes to comments alone do not change the stamp. In our megamodel setting, this kind of thing happens more than in conventional system build, because it is normal that only part-perhaps only a small part-of the information contained in a model is relevant to a particular bidirectional transformation involving it.…”

Section: About Plutomentioning

confidence: 99%

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Connecting software build with maintaining consistency between models: towards sound, optimal, and flexible building from megamodels

Stevens

2020

Softw Syst Model

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Software build systems tackle the problem of building software from sources in a way which is sound (when a build completes successfully, the relations between the generated and source files are as specified) and optimal (only genuinely required rebuilding steps are done). In this paper, we explain and exploit the connection between software build and the megamodel consistency problem. The model-driven development of systems involves multiple models, metamodels and transformations. Transformations-which may be bidirectional-specify, and provide means to enforce, desired "consistency" relationships between models. We can describe the whole configuration using a megamodel. As development proceeds, and various models are modified, we need to be able to restore consistency in the megamodel, so that the consequences of decisions first recorded in one model are appropriately reflected in the others. At the same time, we need to minimise the amount of recomputation needed; in particular, we would like to avoid reapplying a transformation when no relevant changes have occurred in the models it relates. The megamodel consistency problem requires flexibility beyond what is found in conventional software build, because different results are obtained depending on which models are allowed to be modified and on the order and direction of transformation application. In this paper, we propose using an orientation model to make important choices explicit. We show how to extend the formalised build system pluto to provide a means of restoring consistency in a megamodel, that is, in appropriate senses, flexible, sound and optimal.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Section: Towards Applying Build System Work In Mddmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: About Plutomentioning

confidence: 99%

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Connecting software build with maintaining consistency between models: towards sound, optimal, and flexible building from megamodels

Stevens

2020

Softw Syst Model

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“…These challenges are complicated by irreducible unidirectionalities in automated transformations (e.g. model-to-code) limiting the desirable round-trip engineering [167] (i.e., the change between views of the same data).…”

Section: Difficulties and Misconceptions Of Unificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Opportunities for Integrated Formal Methods

2019

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Formal methods have provided approaches for investigating software engineering fundamentals and also have high potential to improve current practices in dependability assurance. In this article, we summarise known strengths and weaknesses of formal methods. From the perspective of the assurance of robots and autonomous systems (RAS), we highlight new opportunities for integrated formal methods and identify threats to the adoption of such methods. Based on these opportunities and threats, we develop an agenda for fundamental and empirical research on integrated formal methods and for successful transfer of validated research to RAS assurance. Furthermore, we outline our expectations on useful outcomes of such an agenda. AcronymsAI artificial intelligence ASIL automotive safety integrity level DA dependability assurance DAL design assurance level DSE dependable systems engineering DSL domain-specific language FDA Food and Drug Administration FI formal inspection FM formal method HCI human-computer interaction iFM integrated formal method IT information technology MBD model-based development MDE model-driven engineering ML machine learning RAS robots and autonomous systems RCA root cause analysis RE requirements engineering SACM Structured Assurance Case Meta-model SC systematic capability SIL safety integrity level SMT Satisfiability Modulo Theory SWOT strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats SysML Systems Modelling Language UML Unified Modelling Language UTP Unifying Theories of ProgrammingWe view robots and autonomous systems as both dependable systems and highly automated machines capable of achieving a variety of complex tasks in support of humans. We can consider such systems by looking at four layers: the plant or process composed of the operational environment and the machine; the machine itself; the machine's controller, and the software embedded into this controller. Based on these layers, we treat "embedded system" and "embedded software" as synonyms. Machine, controller, and software can all be distributed.By dependable systems engineering, we refer to error-avoidance and error-detection activities in control system and embedded software development (e.g. according to the V-model). Avizienis et al.[7] devised a comprehensive terminology and an overview of the assessment and handling of a variety of faults, errors, and failures. For critical systems, such activities are expected to be explicit (e.g. traceable, documented), to employ best practices (e.g. design patterns), and to be driven by reasonably qualified personnel (e.g. well-trained and experienced engineers or programmers).The need for dependability often arises from the embedding of software into a cyber-physical context (i.e., an electronic execution platform, a physical process to be controlled, and other systems or human users to interact with). Dependability assurance (DA), or assurance for short, encompasses the usually cross-disciplinary task of providing evidence for an assurance case (e.g. safety, security, reliability) for a sys...

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“…Developing and maintaining these different operations as separate programs in a standard programming language is typically tedious and error-prone; the required programs tend to be similar enough to feel redundant to a programmer, yet are often still sufficiently different to defeat any naïve attempts at extracting common parts. Changing all operations consistently to avoid contradictions is thus an intricate task [Ste18]. To simplify bx development, diverse bx languages and tools have been proposed over the years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What do Users Expect of Bidirectional Transformations?

Wohlrab¹,

Anjorin²,

Mishra³

2020

JOT

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A bidirectional transformation (bx) is a means of maintaining the consistency of two or more related sources of information. Existing bx frameworks attempt to capture what it means for a bx to be well-behaved by proposing various laws. In many cases, however, it is still unclear if such laws really capture "desirable" behaviour from a user's perspective. We argue that knowing most users' expectations is not only useful as input for designing, extending, and improving existing bx frameworks and tools, but also when attempting to choose the most suitable bx tool for a specific application scenario and group of users. In addition, being aware of intuitive expectations that cannot be fulfilled by a chosen bx tool (perhaps for good reasons!) is equally important; when designing and implementing consistency maintainers, such mismatches between users' expectations and tool characteristics should be made explicit and discussed with all stakeholders. In this paper, we designed and performed an experiment asking 65 computer science students to answer questions regarding the expected behaviour of a synchroniser. Our contribution is twofold: (i) we propose an experiment design that can be adapted and repeated for a specific group of users, and (ii) we present and discuss empirical data obtained from two runs of the experiment.

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Is Bidirectionality Important?

Cited by 8 publications

References 9 publications

Connecting software build with maintaining consistency between models: towards sound, optimal, and flexible building from megamodels

Connecting software build with maintaining consistency between models: towards sound, optimal, and flexible building from megamodels

New Opportunities for Integrated Formal Methods

What do Users Expect of Bidirectional Transformations?

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