BXtend - A Framework for (Bidirectional) Incremental Model Transformations

Model transformations constitute the core essence of model-driven software development (MDSD) – a software engineering discipline, which gained more and more attention during the last decade. While technology for unidirectional batch transformations seems to be fairly well developed, tool support for bidirectional and incremental transformations is still restricted. Results obtained with case studies carried out with popular bidirectional approaches motivated us to set up our own light-weight framework for bidirectional and incremental model transformations based on the Xtend programming language. Our approach provides several advantages, as it reduces the cognitive complexity for transformation developers, and allows for a greater flexibility in transformation specifications by providing procedural language constructs. In addition, it provides a higher expressive power and allows for compact specifications at the same time.