Essay on Semantics Definition in MDE - An Instrumented Approach for Model Verification

In the context of MDE (Model-Driven Engineering), our objective is to define the semantics for a given DSL (Domain Specific Language) either to simulate its models or to check properties on them using model-checking techniques. In both cases, the purpose is to formalize the DSL semantics as it is known by the DSL designer but often in an informal way. After several experiments to define operational semantics on the one hand, and translational semantics on the other hand, we discuss both approaches and we specify in which cases these semantics seem to be judicious. As a second step, we introduce a pragmatic and instrumented approach to define a translational semantics and to validate it against a reference operational semantics expressed by the DSL designer. We apply this approach to the xSPEM process description language in order to verify process models.