Model comparison: the marrow of model transformation

It has been said that model transformation is the "heart and soul" of model engineering, which stresses the important need to evolve and synthesize refinements from models. At a more concrete level, the concept of model comparison represents the core capability that enables many different modeling tasks. Model comparison could be called the "marrow" of model engineering because it is essential to giving life to many other technologies and features that are critical to model engineering. For example, the application of traditional software engineering practices (e.g., version control, testing) to model engineering requires an ability to compare one or more models to understand their differences and commonalities. Model comparison will continue to be essential toward raising the level of maturity in model engineering by providing common practices already available in traditional programming environments. This talk will present an overview of the importance of model comparison across numerous software engineering practices. A specific discussion of my own work in using model comparison for domain-specific models, in order to support model transformation testing and visualization, will be presented.