Domain-Specific Textual Meta-Modelling Languages for Model Driven Engineering

Domain-specific modelling languages are normally defined through general-purpose meta-modelling languages like the MOF. While this is satisfactory for many Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) projects, several researchers have identified the need for domain-specific metamodelling (DSMM) languages providing customised meta-modelling primitives aimed at the definition of modelling languages in a specific domain, as well as the construction of meta-model families. In this paper, we discuss the potential of multi-level meta-modelling for the systematic engineering of DSMM architectures. For this purpose, we present: (i) several primitives and techniques to control the metamodelling facilities offered to the users of the DSMM languages, (ii) a flexible approach to define textual concrete syntaxes for DSMM languages, (iii) extensions to model management languages enabling the practical use of DSMM in MDE, and (iv) an implementation of these ideas in the metaDepth tool.