Domain Specific Engineering Environments

Computer aided software engineering tools represent one the main successes of software engineering in the past decades. They however need to be improved along several dimensions in order to face new challenges due to ever more complex applications, more heterogeneous technologies and more stakeholders involved. In this paper, we present an approach based on the concept of domain. We define a domain as an area in which a number of stakeholders is repeatedly performing similar activities. In a project, an arbitrary number of domains can be identified, being business, technical, or related to life cycle activities. In our metamodel-based approach, any domain can be easily modelled and the corresponding computer aided domain specific engineering environment (CADSE) can be generated. Using CADSE composition, complete and wide scope engineering environments can be built as a composition of an arbitrary number of domains. The paper presents the approach, the technology and draws a few lessons of the first years of use in a number of real projects.