This is a clear case of
duplication of data and effort: the metamodeler has already speci?¬?ed the object types,
their symbols, and which object types and operations are allowed in a given modeling
language.
The manual creation of bitmap icons for lists and palettes is particularly time
consuming: such icons can be produced automatically from the symbol de?¬?nitions
with appropriate ?¬?ltering algorithms. This also removes the problem of producing
several different sizes of icons for different uses, platforms, or screen settings.
Interestingly, today??™s graphical designers use this approach when building ?¬?xed-size
bitmap icons: the icon is drawn as a vector graphic, and automatically scaled to the
variety of sizes stored in a multibitmap icon ?¬?le.
Generating all of these elements automatically ensures that all parts of the
modeling tool remain synchronized with the de?¬?nition of the modeling language.
More importantly, this approach signi?¬?cantly reduces the work required of the
metamodeler: the task is now simply de?¬?ning the modeling language, as it should be,
rather than building tool support for it. The metamodeler is the expert in the domain,
but the creators of the DSM environment are the experts in modeling tool behavior.
Any ?¬‚aws in the behavior should be addressed by the creators of the DSM
environment, helping all metamodelers, rather than separately by each metamodeler.
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