Metamodelling for Software Engineering

DIAGRAM TYPES

Several types of diagrams are contemplated by this notation:

• Lifecycle diagrams, which represent the overall structure of a method
• Enactment diagrams, which represent a specific enactment of a method (or part of a method) and its relationship to the method specification
• Process diagrams, which describe the details of the processes used in a method
• Action diagrams, which show the usage interactions between task kinds and work product kinds.

Lifecycle Diagrams

Lifecycle diagrams represent the overall structure of a method or a portion of a method. This structure has two aspects:

• A temporal aspect, corresponding to the configuration of stages to compose a complete method
• A content aspect, corresponding to the processes that may be executed within each stage.

The temporal aspect can be informally described as the “when”, whereas the content aspect can be described as the “what”. A lifecycle diagram always shows the temporal aspect of a method; the content aspect can, optionally, be shown as well.

Elements

The elements that appear inside a lifecycle diagram are stage kinds and process kinds. Topological containment is extensively used to depict temporal framing, such as a process being performed within a phase or a phase occurring within a time cycle. Generic links are used to join stages inside a common container.

Examples

Consider the example shown in Figure 20 (see the colour plate section). A time cycle kind named “OPEN/Metis Project” is introduced. It contains ...