Implementation, Integration, and Testing

Abstract

Implementation can be introduced as one of the important steps of simulation engineering in which all the concepts and ideas, abstracted as models, are transformed to an executable form. MDE had a major effect on the practices of this step. Models became the major artifacts for implementation. MDE proposed that model development and code generation replace the traditional coding practices. This also disrupted and changed the other major implementation practices like static code analysis, integration, and testing. As models are regarded as the major artifacts, the model development is pronounced as the major activity. Guidelines have been developed for increasing the readability and maintainability of the simulation models and the efficiency and performance of the generated code. Along with them, methods and techniques have been developed for model checking and repair. Advancements in model-to-text transformation enabled effective and flexible code generation. Integration requirements could then be attacked by retargeting the code generator for particular platforms. In the same vein, model-based testing (MBT) introduced generation of executable test cases from a model. This chapter explains the activities of implementation that have been changing with introduction of MDE. These activities include model development, model checking, code generation and integration, and testing. These activities are first explained and introduced with examples from an off-the-shelf modeling and simulation environment, and then a recent methodology research on that particular activity is presented.