Modular Metamodel Engineering: Why, What, How and What’s Next?

Numerous standard and domain-specific modeling languages have been designed to facilitate the modeling of enterprise and software systems. Modeling language definition is a complex engineering task. Metamodeling is an established, practical yet rigorous formalism for language definition, which employs the metamodel as a pivotal engineering artifact. Modular metamodel engineering presents a systematic approach to metamodeling, incorporating concepts of modularization and composition to enhance reusability, flexibility, and efficiency in metamodel definition. It introduces the concept of reusable metamodel fragments, accompanied by a comprehensive set of metamodel composition operators for combining these fragments. This paper provides an overview of the modular metamodel engineering approach. Additionally, it delves into potential applications of microservices in the context of modeling method microservices architecture and discusses the potential application of generative AI, shedding light on its implications for advancing metamodeling practices.