The aim of this paper is to provide tool developers with effective strategies to minimize the risks, costs, effort and time involved in handling model interchange issues. Specifically, we establish a requirements list for model interchange formats and highlight the advantages and disadvantages of representative solutions RSF, TA, RDF, XIF and XMI. As a case study, we introduce SPOOL, our prototype environment for design recovery and composition, and discuss the particular project requirements that led us to envision an XMI-based model interchange engine. We then discuss implementation details and relate the lessons learned in pursuing the described path.
Guy Saint-Denis, Reinhard Schauer, Rudolf K. Kelle