I’m currently writing a blog entry that is also about model-2-model transformations. I would like to explain shortly what a model-2-model transformation is in this post. Therefore I would like to come up with a simple example of two models, where the first is transformed to an instance of the second. Both models should be well known to developers, so that I don’t need to explain them.
However I couldn’t come up with some example models. ATL uses a family and person model in one of their tutorials, but they also require extra explanation as I think.
So do you know an example that I can make use of?
If you want to explain m2m to developers, you can use an M2M-trafo from petri nets to uml activity diagrams. Because activity diagrams are based on petri nets it should not be to complex. I think both models should be known by a developer. Sure, they are not easy, but a developer should know them.
Sure you should keep as simple as possible. This means you should only describe the transformation for a subset of modeling possibilities. For petri nets I only would use simple states and transitions as subset of the metamodel. For activity diagrams I only would use actions and transitions.
There should already be existing examples of this transformation, so you can also use existing knowledge.
Another thing I want to point out is, that someone how learns M2M-trafo understands what M2M-trafos are used for. Because this case described above can be used in practice.