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The idea of EVEToday models are a format for tools and basic services. They could not be exchanged between
different tools and therefore clients were tied to a specific vendor.
As a result models are not reusable and services for the same application
domain have to be reinvented in a costly and time-consuming way for
different tools. Thus, the community could not reach a critical mass.The appearance of XML and the subsequent definition of the eXtensible Metainformation Interchange standard (XMI) opened a way do deal with the problem of different storage formats. The tool market shows a small but ever increasing number of tools capable of working with XMI. EVE provides efficient export and import plugs to enforce this development. Another problem of today's modeling tools is the lack of basic functionalities like constraint monitoring to discover design errors early during modeling, model evolution because in object-oriented modeling, methods often encompass dependency rules, which describe modification steps and usually the existence of certain parts of the model in an earlier phase implies the existence of dependent parts in later phase or code synchronization within models can be kept synchronized with code through roundtrip engineering. The future are modeling tools as services and thin clients. Fault tolerant and light-weight distribution platforms provide the deployment of services in arbitrary locations. Standardized storage formats provide a basis of model exchange and allow processing of models created by arbitrary tools. Ubiquitous browser technology and open graphics standards allow universal presentation. But to use models as effective input for a domain process, closely-fitting domain constrains and documentation must be formulated. This needs a mechanism which allows modelers to 'factor out' domain knowledge to communicate it seperately and to 'factor in'domain knowledge to apply it effeciently. EVE supports a modelling community to collaborate, to promote good modeling methods and services into industrial practice and to gather feedback for the research community with following features: Model Services Services are moved out of fat-client tool and embedded in a sharing mechanism, so the whole community can benefit from a local development. Model Viewers Models and service feedback can be displayed in a brwoser, so the peruse of model and process data increases. Domain-level Reuse Profiles can be added to a model and act like a construction template. They at once introduce to the model the constructs and constrains of the domain in a form which people can understand and service can evaluate. |