Towards a Unified View of Modeling and Programming

In this paper we argue that there is a value in providing a unified view of modeling and programming. Models are meant to describe a system at a high level of abstraction for the purpose of human understanding and analysis. Programs, on the other hand, are meant for execution. However, programming languages are becoming increasingly higher-level, with convenient notation for concepts that in the past would only be reserved formal specification languages. This leads to the observation, that programming languages could be used for modeling, if only appropriate modifications were made to these languages. At the same time, model-based engineering formalisms such as UML and SysML are highly popular in engineering communities due to their graphical nature. However, these communities are, due to the complex nature of these formalisms, struggling to find grounds in textual formalisms with proper semantics. A unified view of modeling and programming may provide a common ground. The paper illustrates these points with selected examples comparing models and programs.