Model Driven Software Engineering Meta-Workbenches: An XTools Approach

Model Driven Software Engineering aims to provide a quality assured process for designing and generating software. Modelling frameworks that offer technologies for domain specific language and associated tool construction are called language workbenches. Since modelling is itself a domain, there are benefits to applying a workbenchbased approach to the construction of modelling languages and tools. Such a framework is a meta-modelling tool and those that can generate themselves are reflective metatools. This article reviews the current state of the art for modelling tools and proposes a set of reflective meta-modelling tool requirements. The XTools framework has been designed as a reflective meta-tool and is used as a benchmark