Motivations
Model artifacts are subject to constant evolution throughout the lifecycle of sys- tems. The evolutionary pressure emerges from various technical and business factors throughout the overall software/system engineering endeavor. Pertinent examples of such factors include changing requirements, changing environment, and changing user base, all of which give rise to unique evolutionary challenges in various system artifacts from architecture to implementation, and even in infor- mal artifacts, such as documentation. These challenges, if left unmanaged, may lead to deteriorating quality attributes, and in severe cases inconsistent artifacts or even incorrect artifacts, preventing the system from operating as intended. Therefore, proper support for efficient and effective evolution is required. The Models and Evolution workshop promotes novel theories, techniques, and tools to support evolution. To this end, the workshop brings together researchers and practitioners to discuss the latest developments on the topic.
Topic of Interest
The topics of interest include, but are not restricted to:
- Foundations
- Theories, methods, and tools for (meta-)model evolution
- Co-evolution across multiple meta-levels (incl. instance and data levels)
- Correctness and quality aspects
- Consistency and correctness of evolving models
- Verification and validation of evolving models
- Applications
- Software migration, reconstruction, reuse, and repurposing
- Evolution of heterogeneous systems, e.g., CPS and digital twins, including the (co-)evolution of virtual and physical artifacts and infrastructure
- Empirical works, industry reports, patterns and catalogs, training and education in the area of model evolution
Abstract: The Evolutionary Life of Metamodels
Metamodels are not static blueprints but living artifacts that evolve in step with their domains, the growing insights and awareness of their designers, and the demands of ever more ambitious requirements. As with any other software, their development is inherently iterative: abstractions are introduced, refined, and tested in cycles that call for rapid feedback. For such an iterative process to be effective, co-evolution must be live and must not disrupt the development workflow. Yet, the moment these iterations affect dependent models, transformations, or editors, co-evolution comes into play. Despite being investigated for a long time, co-evolution still remains a difficult task, riddled with challenges such as lossless adaptation, consistency preservation, and integration into existing workflows. The complexity is heightened by the fact that not only models must be adapted but also their editors, at the bare minimum, to remain usable after metamodel changes. When co-evolution is treated as an afterthought, handled through migration scripts, ad hoc fixes, or disruptive regeneration, it breaks the modeling flow. Designers are forced to leave the creative loop, adapting tools and repairing models before resuming their actual task. This keynote explores the evolutionary life of metamodels, emphasizing the need to integrate co-evolution seamlessly into the development process. Drawing from recent advances in reflective platforms such as Jjodel, I will show how transparent, lossless, and user-guided mechanisms can transform metamodel evolution from a source of disruption into a natural driver of adaptation. By reframing evolution as an always-on capability rather than a costly intervention, we can sustain workflows that remain fluid, resilient, and accessible, whether in education, research, or industrial practice.
Alfonso Pierantonio Biography
Alfonso Pierantonio is Full Professor in the Dipartimento di Ingegneria e Scienze dell’Informazione e Matematica of Università degli Studi dell’Aquila. From Jan 2016, he is visiting full professor at the Mälardalens University (Sweden). Alfonso’s expertise lies in the area of software engineering and, in particular, model-driven and language engineering and low-code with special attention to co-evolution techniques, consistency management, and bidirectionality. Recently, he has been focusing on the classification and clustering of modeling artifact repositories. He has been on the organizing committees of several international conferences and is a member of the steering committee of the MoDELS conference. Alfonso is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Object Technology, in the Editorial Board of the Journal of Software and System Modeling, and on the Science of Computer Programming advisory board. He is (co-)principal investigator of several research and industrial projects.
