Model-Integrating Software Components

In order to handle complexity of software systems, component-based as well as model-driven approaches have become popular in the past. In a model-driven development process the problem arises that over time model and code may be not aligned. Thus, in order to avoid this steadily increasing distance between models and code, we propose the integration of (executable) models and code at the component level. Redundancy – the source of inconsistencies – is reduced by interpreting models directly. Moreover, variability and adaptivity can be achieved by querying and transforming the embedded models. As the basis for such Model-Integrating Components (MoCos), we introduce a component realization concept that is compatible with existing component technologies. We provide a reference implementation using Java, OSGi and TGraphs and apply it successfully in a feasibility study on AndroidTM.