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Quality-driven model transformations: From requirements to UML class diagrams

Abstract:

Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) is a software engineering approach that promotes the use of models and model transformations as primary development artifacts. Usually, there are several ways to transform a source model into a target model. Alternative target models may have the same functionality but may differ in their quality attributes (e.g., understandability, modifiability). This chapter presents an approach to deal with quality-driven model transformations. Specifically, it focuses on a specific set of transformations to obtain UML class diagrams from a Requirements Model. A set of alternative transformations are identified, and the selection of the best alternative is done through a controlled experiment. The goal of the experiment is to empirically validate which alternative transformation produces the UML class diagram that is the easiest to understand. This evidence can be further used to define high-quality transformation processes, as it will be based on empirical knowledge rather than on common wisdom and the intuition of the researchers and developers. © 2009, IGI Global.