TY - GEN
T1 - The Usage of Constraint Specification Languages
T2 - 20th International Conference on Business Process Modeling, Development and Support, BPMDS 2019 and 24th International Conference on Evaluation and Modeling Methods for Systems Analysis and Development, EMMSAD 2019
AU - Maraee, Azzam
AU - Sturm, Arnon
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
PY - 2019/1/1
Y1 - 2019/1/1
N2 - Model-based software engineering places models in the center of the development process. To support this notion, multiple modeling languages are available, and the visual ones are widely used. Nevertheless, visual modeling languages are limited in their expressiveness and sometime might introduce ambiguity into the models. To overcome these limitations, model-based constraint languages have emerged, yet, their usage is limited, probably due to a misconception that they are difficult to work with. In this paper, we challenge this misconception by comparing the use of three constraint languages: OCL, Java, and natural language in understanding and developing model-based constraints. The comparison was made through a controlled experiment with 68 information systems engineering undergraduate students. We found out that using natural language results in shorter times to perform the tasks. Yet, using OCL results in increased accuracy for specifying new constraints, in particular, in complex settings.
AB - Model-based software engineering places models in the center of the development process. To support this notion, multiple modeling languages are available, and the visual ones are widely used. Nevertheless, visual modeling languages are limited in their expressiveness and sometime might introduce ambiguity into the models. To overcome these limitations, model-based constraint languages have emerged, yet, their usage is limited, probably due to a misconception that they are difficult to work with. In this paper, we challenge this misconception by comparing the use of three constraint languages: OCL, Java, and natural language in understanding and developing model-based constraints. The comparison was made through a controlled experiment with 68 information systems engineering undergraduate students. We found out that using natural language results in shorter times to perform the tasks. Yet, using OCL results in increased accuracy for specifying new constraints, in particular, in complex settings.
KW - Constraint language
KW - Controlled experiment
KW - Evaluation
KW - Modeling
KW - OCL
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069218884&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-20618-5_22
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-20618-5_22
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85069218884
SN - 9783030206178
T3 - Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing
SP - 329
EP - 343
BT - Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling - 20th International Conference, BPMDS 2019, 24th International Conference, EMMSAD 2019, Held at CAiSE 2019, Proceedings
A2 - Reinhartz-Berger, Iris
A2 - Zdravkovic, Jelena
A2 - Gulden, Jens
A2 - Schmidt, Rainer
PB - Springer Verlag
Y2 - 3 June 2019 through 4 June 2019
ER -