The current 1.0 release seems to be regarded as falling somewhat short of
what was intended, because of the time constraints of simultaneous release with other
Eclipse projects. The direction toward the next version is however correct, with
getting it right being preferred over backward compatibility. According to GMF
project lead Richard Gronback (2006), ???We anticipate a 2.0 release for the next
release rather than a 1.1 perhaps because [sic] API breakage that we expect.???
Creating a simple editor with GMF consists of building ?¬?ve different XML ?¬?les,
most of which can be created with graphical or form-based modeling tools:
. Domain model: abstract syntax, Ecore model
. Graphical de?¬?nition: concrete syntax, XML or tree view and property sheets
. Tooling de?¬?nition: palette tools and actions, tree view and property sheets
. Mapping de?¬?nition: links ?¬?rst three models, tree view and property sheets
. Generation model: customize plug-in and UI, tree view and property sheets
394 TOOLS FOR DSM
The use of Ecore??”effectively MOF??”for the abstract syntax leads to the normal
dif?¬?culties: relationships in the DSM language may be classes or associations in the
metamodel, and associations in the metamodel may represent relationships, roles or
properties in the DSM language. These ambiguities cause the need for the tooling and
mapping de?¬?nitions, which provide information missing from the Ecore model.
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