Object-Oriented Metamodling is a technological base resting on the columns of Object-Orientation, Modeling, and Meta-Levels. We are exploring the conceptual foundations and principles required for an optimal combination, enabling systematic and sound object-oriented modeling in multi-level modeling architectures. Areas of concern include meta-formats and meta-based tools as well as UML metamodeling problems, and solutions. Well-published results of this work are the "Orthogonal Classification Architecture" and the "Unified Modeling Library". Suggested reading: "Concepts for Comparing Modeling Tool Architectures", "Reducing Accidental Complexity in Domain Models", and "Model-Driven Development: A Metamodeling Foundation".

Modeling is gaining increasing importance and the question of which modeling language is the best is brought into focus more than ever. Two diverging views argue that standardization is required as an enabler of communication on the one hand, and that domain-specificity is necessary to avoid impendence mismatch on the other hand. The concept of a "Domain-Customized Language" is designed to provide the optimal compromise, thus reconciling the two abovementioned camps as much as possible. Suggested reading: "A Tour of Language Customization Concepts", Advances in Computers 70.

This research strand is concerned with the issues involved in defining useful architectural system descriptions for complex software systems. The underling principle is the idea of identifying distinct architectural viewpoints, known as strata, each capturing different concerns of the system respectively. Suggested reading: A brief tour to Architecture Stratification, "Aspect-Oriented Development with Stratified Frameworks" and "Generating Systems from Multiple Levels of Abstraction".

(in cooperation with wibas GmbH)

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