Evaluation of Development Tools for Domain-Specific Modeling Languages

Creating and maintaining tools for domain-specific modeling languages (DSML) demands time and efforts that often discourage potential developers. However, several tools are now available that promise to accelerate the development of DSML environments. In this paper, we evaluate five such tools (GME, Tau G2, RSA, XMF-Mosaic, and Eclipse with GEF and EMF) by observing how well they can be used to create graphical editors for the Goal-oriented Requirement Language (GRL), for which a simplified metamodel is provided. We discuss the evaluation criteria, results, and lessons learned during the creation of GRL editors with these technologies.