Foundations of Model (Driven) (Reverse) Engineering : Models – Episode I: Stories of The Fidus Papyrus and of The Solarus

Abstract

Model Driven Engineering (MDE) received a lot of attention in the last years, both from academia and industry. However, there is still a debate on which basic concepts form the foundation of MDE. The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) from the OMG does not provided clear answers to this question. This standard instead provides a complex set of interdependent technologies. This paper is the first of a series aiming at defining the foundations of MDE independently from a particular technology. A megamodel is introduced in this paper and incrementally refined in further papers from the series. This paper is devoted to a single concept, the concept of model, and to a single relation, the RepresentationOf relation. The lack of strong foundations for the MDA  4-layers meta-pyramid leads to a common mockery: ``So, MDA is just about Egyptology?!''. This paper is the pilot of the series called ``From Ancient Egypt to Model Driven Engineering''. The various episodes of this series show that Egyptology is actually a good model to study MDE.