Antonio Vallecillo. On the Combination of Domain Specific Modeling Languages. In Proc. of the European Conference on Models Foundations and Applications (ECMFA 2010). Volume 6138 of LNCS, Springer, Paris, France, june 2010.
Domain Specific Modeling Languages (DSMLs) are essential elements in Model-based Engineering. Each DSML allows capturing certain properties of the system, while abstracting other properties away. Nowadays DSMLs are mostly used in silos to solve specific problems. However, there are many occasions when multiple DSMLs need to be combined to design systems in a modular way. In this paper we discuss some scenarios of use and several mechanisms for DSML combination. We propose a general framework for combining DSMLs that subsumes them, based on the concept of viewpoint unification, and its realization using model-driven techniques.