6th OOPSLA Workshop on Domain-Specific Modeling

22 October 2006
Portland, Oregon, USA

Workshop has now finished. You can view the papers and presentations as well as the photos.

Domain-Specific Modeling raises the level of abstraction beyond programming by specifying the solution directly using domain concepts. In many cases, final products can be generated automatically from these high-level specifications. This automation is possible because both the language and generators need fit the requirements of only one company and domain.

Industrial experiences of DSM consistently show it to be 5-10 times faster than current practices, including current UML-based implementations of MDA. As Booch et al. say* "the full value of MDA is only achieved when the modeling concepts map directly to domain concepts rather than computer technology concepts." For example, DSM for cell phone software would have concepts like "Soft key button", "SMS" and "Ring tone", and generators to create calls to corresponding code components.

The 6th DSM workshop featured 22 research and position papers describing new ideas at either a practical or theoretical level. On the practical side, several papers described application of modeling techniques within a specific domain. In addition to industrial projects, several authors from academia presented research ideas that initiate and forward the technical underpinnings of domain-specific modeling. Workshop had over 40 participants.

Workshop format and schedule

Workshop was organized as a OOPSLA workshop. It followed the same structure found effective during the past workshops: presentations of papers first and group work and its reporting afternoon. 

Papers and presentations

The papers were organized into four themes: cases, practical experiences, theory and perspectives. Together all these contributions formed a basis for fruitful discussions on creation, use and refinement of DSM and supporting tools. Papers are available as printed proceedings as well as online.

Group work results

Afternoon all participants split up into focus groups to discuss and explore topics that were proposed by the workshop participants. At the end of the workshop each group gave a presentation summarizing its discussion. Workshop ended with general discussion and taking a group photo.

Program committee

Organizing committee

*) Grady Booch, Alan Brown, Sridhar Iyengar, Jim Rumbaugh, Bran Selic, MDA Journal, May 2004