Lost in Translation? Transformation Nets to the Rescue

Abstract. The vision of Model-Driven Engineering places models as first-class artifacts throughout the software lifecycle. An essential pre-requisite is the availability of proper transformation languages allowing not only code generation but also augmentation, migration or transla-tion of models themselves. Current approaches, however, lack convenient facilities for debugging and ensuring the understanding of the transfor-mation process. To tackle these problems, we propose a novel formalism for the development of model transformations which is based on Colored Petri Nets. This allows first, for an explicit, process-oriented execution model of a transformation, thereby overcoming the impedance mismatch between the specification and execution of model transformations, be-ing the prerequisite for convenient debugging. Second, by providing a homogenous representation of all artifacts involved in a transformation, including metamodels, models and the actual transformation logic itself, understandability of model transformations is enhanced