This leads us to introduce
language speci?¬?cation languages: Section 10.3 describes metamodeling as a technique
for language de?¬?nition and formalization. Having a formalization mechanism, our next
concern in Section 10.4 is identifying and specifying various connections and rules
among the modeling concepts. We then extend the scope from one language to
language integration: having multiple languages that focus on different aspects of the
problem domain. In Section 10.6, we give guidelines for de?¬?ning concrete syntax: the
notation of modeling languages. Metamodels provide an extra bene?¬?t for language
de?¬?nition as they can be instantiated to prototype and test the language. Section 10.7
gives guidelines for language testing, both before and after the language has been used.
Finally, a DSM language almost always evolves along with the domain and our
understanding of it. Section 10.8 describes language re?¬?nement and space and gives
guidelines for maintaining the language already in use.
10.2 IDENTIFYING AND DEFINING MODELING CONCEPTS
Language de?¬?nes the boundary to our world: it sets what we can describe and also
what we can??™t (Wittgenstein, 1922). For DSM the latter is crucial, as narrowing down
the design space makes it possible to have generators that target full code generation.
If it is not possible to narrow down the scope, then most likely the modeling language
is unusable for generating the required code or other artifacts.
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