A Comparison of Mechanisms for Integrating Handwritten and Generated Code for Object-Oriented Programming Languages
This addresses the challenge for MDD tool developers in ensuring sound integration in complex systems, but it is incremental as it focuses on comparison rather than introducing new solutions.
The paper tackles the problem of integrating generated and handwritten code in model-driven development for object-oriented languages by providing an overview and comparison of mechanisms, with results aimed at helping tool developers choose appropriate methods.
Code generation from models is a core activity in model-driven development (MDD). For complex systems it is usually impossible to generate the entire software system from models alone. Thus, MDD requires mechanisms for integrating generated and handwritten code. Applying such mechanisms without considering their effects can cause issues in projects with many model and code artifacts, where a sound integration for generated and handwritten code is necessary. We provide an overview of mechanisms for integrating generated and handwritten code for object-oriented languages. In addition to that, we define and apply criteria to compare these mechanisms. The results are intended to help MDD tool developers in choosing an appropriate integration mechanism.