Application of a Generator-Based Software Development Method Supporting Model Reuse

Two important phases in the software development process of large systems are modeling and coding of the system components and their interrelations. While the modeling phase is the creative part and must be done manually, the coding phase should be automated. In this paper we describe a generator-based software development method for large systems and an experimental implementation of this method. Domain-specific base models are reused and customized to application models for many projects within the domain. The application models are then input to specialized, powerful code generators which produce most of the application's source code automatically. Furthermore, we discuss the reuse potential of using and customizing common base models and using domain- and component-specific code generators.