Proposal for a Multi-View Modelling Case Study: Component-Based Software Engineering with UML, Plug-ins, and Java

Abstract

During the design and development of complex systems, multiple modelling languages are often necessary in order to describe a system for specific tasks and users. The resulting models can show parts of the same system from different perspectives or views, which is described by the term multi-view modelling. The overlap between individual views presents fundamental challenges, e.g. for sustaining consistency among views or for the creation of new views. A common multi-view modelling case study that covers essential challenges and requirements can be used as a basis for the comparison of approaches that address these challenges. In this paper, we propose such a case study in the context of component-based software engineering with UML composite diagrams, Eclipse plug-ins, and Java code. We explain the overlap between the different views, propose new view types that aggregate information from several sources, and discuss essential challenges of multi-view modelling that are posed by this case study. These challenges are, for example, one-to-many and partial relations between elements of different views, and the constraint combination effects of different views. Our proposal contributes to the community effort that is required to obtain a common case study that enables an efficient comparison of multi-view modelling approaches.