Abstract
A software tool named MetaBuilder is described. MetaBuilder’s purpose is to enable the rapid creation of computerised diagram editing tools for structured diagrammatic notations. At its heart is an object-oriented, graphical metamodelling technique - a diagrammatic notation for describing other diagrammatic notations.
The notation is based upon the concept of a mathematical graph consisting of nodes and edges. Construction of a “target tool” proceeds by drawing a metamodel of the target notation. Items in the target notation are modelled as “classes” and the syntax of the target notation such as connectivity between elements are expressed as “relationships” between the classes. Once the metamodel is complete, a new tool can be generated automatically. Thus the time to develop such notation specific drawing tools can be dramatically reduced. As the design of a piece of software can be expressed diagrammatically, the MetaBuilder software can be used to build itself!
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Alderson A., 1991, Lecture Notes. In:European Symposium on Software Development Environments and CASE technology, Konigswinter, Germany, June 1991 Lecture Notes in Computer Science 509. Springer-Verlag
Fisher, A.S., CASE: Using Software Development Tools, 2nd Ed., John Wiley & Sons, New York,NY, 1992
Cybulski, J.L. & Reed, K., 1992. A Hypertext BASED Software-Engineering Environment. IEEE Software, March 1992
Ebert, J., Süttenbach, I.U. (1997) Meta-CASE in Practice: A Case for KOGGE, In A. Olive, J.A. Pastor: Advanced Information Systems Engineering, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference, CaiSE’97, 203–216
Ferguson, R.I., Parrington N.F., Dunne, P., Archibald, J.M., & Thompson, J.B., MetaMOOSE-an Object-Oriented Framework for the construction of CASE tools, in Journal of Information and Software Technology, Feb, 2000
Ferguson R.I., Parrington N.F. & Dunne P., 1994. MOOSE: A Method Designed for Ease of Maintenance. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Quality Software Production 1994 (ICQSP 94), Hong Kong: IFIP
Ferguson, R.I., Parrington N.F., Dunne, P., Archibald, J.M. & Thompson, J.B., MetaMOOSE-an Object-Oriented Framework for the construction of CASE tools In: Proceedings of International Symposium on Constructing Software Engineering Tools (CoSET’99) Los Angeles, May 1999
Grundy, J.C., Mugridge, W.B., Hosking, J.G. (1998) Visual Specification of Multi-View Visual Environments, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages
Grundy, J.C., Hosking, J.G. & Mugridge, W.B., Supporting Flexible Consistency Management via Discrete Change Description Propagation, Software-Practice and Experience. Vol26, No. 9, pp 1053–1083, September 1996
IPSYS Software, 1991. TBK Reference Manual. Macclesfield, UK: Macclesfield, UK: IPSYS
IPSYS Software, 1991. Toolbuilder Reference Manual. Macclesfield, UK: Macclesfield, UK: IPSYS
Kelly, S., Lyytinen, K., Rossi, M. (1996) MetaEdit+ A Fully Configurable Multi-User and Multi-Tool CASE and CAME Environment, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1080, pp. 1–21
McIntyre, D.W. (1995) Design and Implementation with Vampire In: Burnett, M.M., Goldberg, A., Lewis, T.G. Visual Object-Oriented Programming Concepts and Environments, Prentice Hall, Chapter 7, pp. 129–159
McWhirter, J.D. & Nutt, G.J., Escalante: An Environment for the Rapid Construction of Visual Language Applications, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (VL’94),pp 15–22, 1991
Ousterhout, J.K., Tcl and the Tk Toolkit, Addison-Wesley, Reading MA, 1994
Harrison, M., Tcl/Tk Tools, O’Reilly, 1997.
Ferguson, R.I., The MetaBuilder Project, online at http://www.cet.sunderland.ac.uk/rif/metabuilder/welcome.html, 2000.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Ferguson, R.I., Hunter, A., Hardy, C. (2000). MetaBuilder: The Diagrammer’s Diagrammer. In: Anderson, M., Cheng, P., Haarslev, V. (eds) Theory and Application of Diagrams. Diagrams 2000. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1889. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44590-0_34
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44590-0_34
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-67915-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-44590-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive