| Metamodels without Metacircularities (2007) | |||||||||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||||||||
| ABSTRACT. Although modeling languages as the UML (Unified Modeling Language) are primarily used in the context of software development, other application scenarios exist. A prominent example is the definition of languages; e.g. UML is partly defined in terms of UML. This technique of metamodeling became popular and has many advantages, but metacircularity is one of the most serious disadvantages. This paper proposes an approach that allows the formulation of metamodels but prevents metacircularity at the same time. The core of our approach is the UML-like formalism CINV that is formally defined in a set-theoretical way and serves as a metalanguage to define UML in syntax and semantics. In this paper we concentrate on the application of CINV to describe the abstract syntax of a language. In particular, we will compare our CINV descriptions with similar metamodels formulated in UML. That comparison reveals some principal shortcomings of UML when used as a metalanguage. RSUM. Bien que les langages de modlisation comme l'UML (Unified Modeling Language) soient utiliss en premier lieu pour le dveloppement de software, il y a des autres possibilits d'application. Un exemple trs connu est la dfinition des langages, par exemple l'UML est dfini partiellement par l'UML. Cette mthode de mta-modlisation est devenue populaire | |||||||||||||||||
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