Developing Model Transformations: A Systematic Literature Review.

Model Driven Development is an approach that makes use of models instead of code in software development. At its core, there is a transformation chain responsible for the (semi) automation of the development process converting models into models until code. The development of transformations has been a challenge as there is an inherent complexity of the transformation domain in addition to the complexity of the software being constructed using these transformations. In order to assist this development as well as improve transformation quality, it is important to adopt software engineering facilities such as processes, languages and other techniques. This paper presents a systematic literature review of strategies currently proposed to develop model transformations. We aim to investigate development processes or any other strategies used to guide transformation development, the phases of software development life cycle considered, modeling languages adopted for specification and also the level of automation provided. The study selected and analyzed 23 papers to identify which aspects are addressed by research and any gaps in this area. We identified four different strategies in guiding transformation development and perceived the lack of a modeling language standard.