Tooling Metamodels with Patterns and OCL

Computing is moving to a new paradigm where models are first class artefacts. Metamodelling is one of the foundations of this future. However, it is all very well to have metamodels and languages with which to define them (i.e. MOF), but what should we do with them once they are defined? One task should be to populate the model described by the metamodel definition and ensure that the well-formedness constraints are correctly specified; another task may be to create a tool based on the metamodel. In order to enable experiments with variations in the metamodel an automated approach to building such tools is required. Judicious use of patterns can facilitate automatic generation of such tools. The ability to auto-generate a tool from a metamodel definition facilitates experimentation and general confidence in the definition of the metamodel. The tool generated can be subsequently used as the foundation for a more functionally rich hand-coded tool.