Magritte
A Meta-Driven Approach to Empower
Developers and End Users
Lukas Renggli
Stéphane Ducasse
Adrian Kuhn
University of Bern, Switzerland
Software Composition Group

Roadmap
Problem
Demo
Implementation
Evaluation
Questions

What is the problem?

Rapidly changing
requirements

End users would
know their requirements

What did we see?

Meta-driven
software

Developer defined
meta-model

End user defined
meta-model

Run-time dynamic
meta-model

Meta-
Metamodel
<described-by>
Metamodel
Developer
<described-by>
Domain Model
End User

Meta-
Metamodel
<described-by>
Metamodel
Magritte
Developer
<described-by>
Domain Model
Magritte
End User

How does it work?

Type
Object
Component
Component
Type 1 *
1 1
(a) Type-Square
* *
Property
Property
Type 1 *
Type
Object
[Yoder et al, 2001] Architecture and design of adaptive object models

Type
Object
Component
Component
Type 1 *
1 1
(a) Type-Square
* *
Property
Property
Type 1 *
Type
Object
[Yoder et al, 2001] Architecture and design of adaptive object models

attributes
attributes
1 1 * attributes
*
1
Object *
Object *
*
Object
*
description
description
Object
Object
Type
Type
description
Object
Type
attributes
Description *
Description * *
1
Description *

attributes
attributes
1 1 * attributes
*
1
Object *
Object *
*
Object
*
description
description
Object
Object
Type
Type
description
Object
Type
attributes
Description *
Description * *
1
Description *

attributes
attributes
1 1 * attributes
*
1
Object *
Object *
*
Object
*
description
description
Object
Object
Type
Type
description
Object
Type
attributes
Description *
Description * *
1
Description *

Describe Objects

Describe Descriptions

Describe Constraints

Describe Behavior

pen-source development environment for
programming language. Despite being the
ted language and environment, Smalltalk
ar ahead of its successors in promoting a
Squeak by Example
ment where everything is an object, and
run-time.
Smalltalk
ended for both students and developers,
ly through the Squeak language and
of a series of examples and exercises.
vailable under the Creative Commons
3.0 license. You can either download the
an buy a softcover copy from lulu.com.
available from the book's web page at
www.squeak.org
g, hosted by the University of Bern,
Squeak
dorsed by ESUG, the European Smalltalk
more about Smalltalk and ESUG, see
www.squeakbyexample.org
Black!•!Ducasse!•!Niers
2
by Example
Andrew P. Black, Stéphane Ducasse, Oscar Nierstrasz, Damien Pollet

Reflection

Integration with Tools

Class Extension

What can we do with it?

Automatic Views

Automatic Editors

Automatic Validation

Move Page

Automatic Reports

Automatic Querying

Automatic Persistency

What did we gain?

t rid of
Ge
Reduce recurrent work

Describe once,
get everywhere

Extensible
Object Model

Ru n-t ime
Adaptive object model

Code Generation

End users
customizability

Industrial Users

Aare
Workflow definition
and runtime system

Magritte
www.lukas-renggli.ch
[René Magritte, 1966] Decalcomania

LOC Comparison
Model View
1561 LOC 1812 LOC
44% 37%
View Model
1983 LOC 3078 LOC
56% 63%
SmallWiki Pier
Traditional Meta-described

Speed Comparison
9,000
8,190
6,750
4,500
2,250 2,456
0
Traditional Meta-Described