A deductive view on process-data diagrams

Abstract

Process-Data Diagrams (PDDs) are a popular technique to represent method fragments and their recombination to new adapted method specifications. It turns out that PDDs are at odds with a strict separation of MOF/MDA abstraction levels as advocated by MOF/MDA. We abandon the restriction and specify PDDs by a metametamodel that supports both process and product parts of PDDs. The instantiation of the process side of PDDs can then the used as the type level for a simple traceability framework. The deductive formalization of PDDs allows to augment them by a plethora of analysis tools. The recombination of method fragments is propagated downwards to the recombination of the process start and end points. The hierarchical structure of the product side of PDDs can be used to detect unstructured updates from the process side. © 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.