The family model speci?¬?es the static elements of a watch
model, such as buttons and icons. Later, in the behavioral model describing a logical
watch, those buttons and icons could be directly reused. Changing the button in the
static product component speci?¬?cation then automatically updates all the behavioral
speci?¬?cations that use the button.
Reuse always takes place in some context and direction and these can be speci?¬?ed
in the DSM language. For example, the metamodel can make it impossible to create
newmodel elements and enforce reusing instead. More ?¬‚exible would be ?¬?rst guiding
to reuse but allowing new model elements if suitable ones are not available. Finally,
the language may be de?¬?ned so that reuse is not mandatory and can be speci?¬?ed later
once the reusable model or model elements become available.
10.6 NOTATION FOR THE LANGUAGE
Notation gives a visual representation for the models. De?¬?ning the notation makes
sense only after the modeling concepts are already identi?¬?ed. Notation is therefore the
wrong place to start de?¬?ning aDSMlanguage. Although model representation plays a
minor role in code generation and other automated tasks, it is highly relevant for
acceptance and usability. Especially in the beginning when a modeling language is
new, there can well be more comments and feedback on how a language looks than on
how it works.
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