Strategies to Evolve ExM Notations Extracted from a Survey with Software Engineering Professionals Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5753/jserd.2021.1939Keywords:
executable models, complex systems, simulation, survey researchAbstract
Large-scale, complex systems often exhibit dynamic structures and behaviors, several components/systems involved, and multiple interoperability links. Those systems have been exposed to fragilities of traditional software specification languages (e.g. UML and SySML), since such languages were designed to document single (not multiple interoperating) systems. Those limitations can potentially further compromise the quality of the final software product. In this context, Executable Models (ExM) technology, such as simulation models, models@runtime and executable UML, satisfy the aforementioned requirements by supporting engineers with visualization of the system structures (still at design-time) and the ability to model their behaviors and interactions. However, a decrease in the use of models and consequently ExM by software engineering professionals in the academy and industry is currently noticed and we claim that those professionals have not exhibited abilities to use ExM even in simpler scenarios. In this article, we present the results of an exploratory study on the perceptions of those professionals regarding the use of ExM to solve problems in their current practice. 58 professionals were exposed to situations to solve problems using a specific type of ExM (DEVS simulation models), based on a survey research. Responses were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. From the results, we analysed and compiled a list of strategies to improve ExM notations to better address the needs of software engineering professionals. Later, we assessed those strategies with software engineering researchers in order to confirm the importance of the proposed strategies. Results revealed that executable languages still require advances to bring them even closer to the current software engineering practice and towards a larger adoption in the future. The proposed strategies focus on improvements on the robustness of the ExM notations, visual representation of the models, usability of the models, and user support.
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Copyright (c) 2022 Bruno Gabriel Lebtag, Paulo Gabriel Teixeira, Dr. Rodrigo Pereira dos Santos, Dr. Davi Viana, Dr. Valdemar Vicente Graciano Neto
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