Breaking Up the Transformation Chain

Both Model-Driven Software Development (MDSD) and Model Driven Architecture (MDA) emphasize the importance of precise machine-readable models and automatic transformations on these models. In this paper we identify the need to externally specify transformation units in terms of required and provided model properties. We also present shortly how one can use semantically rich transformation traceability information as a specific kind of externally quantifiable property. Using precise specifications allows to break up monolithic transformation implementations into modular chains of transformation units that only depend each other’s, externally specified, output model characteristics.