Reflective Model Driven Engineering

In many large organizations, the model transformations allowing the engineers to more or less automatically go from platformindependent models (PIM) to platform-specific models (PSM) are increasingly seen as vital assets. As tools evolve, it is critical that these transformations are not prisoners of a given CASE tool. Considering in this paper that a CASE tool can be seen as a platform for processing a model transformation, we propose to reflectively apply the MDA to itself. We propose to describe models of transformations that are CASE tool independent (platform-independent transformations or PIT) and from them to derive platform-specific transformations (PST). We show how this approach might help in reaching a consensus in the RFP on MOF QVT, including a solution for the declarative/imperative dilemma. We finally explore the consequences of this approach on the development life-cycle.