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space, a metamodel of business, the domain metamodel, is
created by SPL architects representing the functional scope
of the product line. Of course,this design can be complemented
using the classic feature model notation. Since metamodels are
able to represent the feature model notation,a MDE is general
and uniform. Then, from this metamodel, SPL architects
develop at least one architectural reference metamodel, which
summarizes the architecture of any product line member.
Reference architecture captures the common architecture of
any product and the variations included in the domain. This
designcanbecomplementedusingfeaturemodels.Alltheother
core assets are created during domain engineering and the
production chain is established.
In MD-SPL engineering, the rationale of a production chain
is an assembly of model transformation rules that transform
domain models into architectural or other intermediate
models and finally into source code. The production chain
relates three important pieces: the
domain metamodel
, the
model transformation
rules, and the
architecture metamodel
.
Obviously, this is the main difficulty in domain engineering
since the role of the production chain is to generate a
product from a product configuration represented as a domain
model, the reference architecture, and other core assets. The
production chain is complex and cannot be modeled by one
stage only; this is a multi-staged process. Here, we only
relate the two main stages and
views
: architecture and source-
code levels. Thus, the production chain will first create a
product model using model-to-model transformations and then
additional model-to-text transformations generate the source
code application. Any realistic software engineering chain
should be open to the external world, that is mainly to re-
use existing artifacts or to support modifications for various
evolution purposes. For instance, the use of external libraries
can be undertaken both at the architectural or source-code
level, provided that component interfaces are well designed
and included in the models of the products. Interfaces, in a
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