Model driven software development and evolution

大型软件应用程序在不同的阶段进行设计和开发。这些阶段涉及指定需求和业务目标、设计系统、实现源程序、测试各个组件和整个应用程序，最后部署系统。在软件工程文献中，我们认为一旦软件系统部署到站点上，它们就进入了一个新的阶段，称为维护阶段。在这方面，设计一个新系统属于正向工程，而理解和维护现有系统属于逆向工程和进化。传统上，向前工程和应用程序演化被认为是软件工程研究的两个不同领域，它们共享的公共模型、过程、技术和工具非常有限(如果有的话)。直到最近，研究界和软件工程从业者才将软件开发视为一个迭代和增量的过程，在这个过程中，模型和构件被缓慢而渐进地设计、开发和改进，直到完成整个应用程序。这些方法认为软件开发应该采取一致的、系统的和递增的对软件模型的理解、操作、转换、演化和同步的形式。这些模型共存于称为集成开发环境或IDE的专用工具中。在此背景下，拟议研究的目标是调查、设计和实现支持软件模型的表示、转换和同步的新技术，以促进大型工业系统的半自动、迭代和增量设计、开发和演化。到目前为止，关于可用于支持下一代集成开发环境的通用模型转换框架的研究有限。这项研究有望为如何设计下一代集成软件开发环境提供见解。

Large software applications are designed and developed in distinct phases. These phases pertain to specifying the requirements and the business objectives, designing the system, implementing the source program, testing the individual components and the application as a whole and finally, deploying the system. In the software engineering literature we consider that once software systems are deployed on a site then they enter a new phase which is referred to as, the maintenance phase. In this respect, designing a new system pertains to forward engineering while understanding and maintaining existing systems pertains to reverse engineering and evolution. Traditionally, forward engineering and application evolution were considered as two distinct areas of software engineering research that share very limited, if any, common models, processes, techniques, and tools. It is only recently that the research community and the software engineering practitioners view software development as an iterative and incremental process, where models and artifacts are slowly and incrementally designed, developed and, refined until the full application is completed. Such approaches consider that software development should take the form of consistent, systematic and incremental understanding, manipulation, transformation, evolution, and synchronization of software models. These models co-exist in specialized tools called Integrated Development Environments or IDEs. In this context, the objective of the proposed research is to investigate, design, and implement novel techniques to support the representation, transformation, and synchronization of software models in order to facilitate the semi-automatic, iterative and, incremental design, development and, evolution of large industrial systems. To date, there is only limited research on generalizing such model transformation frameworks that can be used to support the next generation of Integrated Development Environments. This research is expected to provide insights on how to design the next generation Integrated Software Development Environments.