Towards Modular Combination and Reuse of Languages with Perspectives

To describe the characteristics of a complex system, model-driven engineering (MDE) advocates the use of different modelling languages and multiple views. This allows the use of the most appropriate modelling language for expressing a specific system characteristic. However, maintaining the consistency between the views during the lifetime of the system is non-trivial. Moreover, languages can be added or removed from a multi-language system, which can be a daunting endeavour. We propose a framework for the specification and development of multi-language systems based on perspectives. A perspective groups different languages for a modelling purpose. A perspective defines composite actions for building a consistent multi-model view and then maintaining the relationships between different language elements. These actions are specified by re-exposing, combining, or redefining existing language actions offered by the languages the perspective reuses. Perspectives support a proactive and reactive approach for handling inconsistencies between different language elements.