Monday, March 3, 2008

Programmer graph rewritting

The recently advocated MDA ( model driven architecture ) approach in software engineering, is based upon Meta models and model transformations. and given that we can represent models as graphs we then can argue about graph rewritings as model transformations.

a classification of these transformations include the following :
  1. Unordered : set of rules which get applied at no particular order. and the transformation halts when no more rules can be applied
  2. Ordered : set of rules which get applied at a particular order or partial order.
  3. Even-driven: the order is driven by external events or interrupts.
Programmed graph transformations are ordered and structured rules, that can incorporate programming languages constructs in thier textual form .

An overview of graph transformation systems follow the same concept a LHS graph is swapped with a RHS graph . attributes transfer from the original to the target can also by done. some conditions can be enforced on certain rules using OCL.


motif transformation language is based on DEVS, it is being developed by Eugene and professor Hans at the school of computer science at mcgill university. essentially it allows the users to model graph transformation in the ATOM3 environment, and then compile this rules as DEVs which adds the concept of time to them, and allows for better analysis.
for more information check eugene homepage http://moncs.cs.mcgill.ca/people/eugene/