Is Bidirectionality Important

Bidirectional transformations maintain consistency between information sources, such as different models of the same software system. In certain settings this is undeniably convenient – but is it important? I will argue that developing our ability to engineer dependable bidirectional transformations is likely to be crucial to our ability to meet the demand for software in coming decades. I will discuss some of the work that has been done so far, including some I’ve had a hand in, and what challenges remain.