Model-driven rapid prototyping with programmed graph transformations

Modern software systems are constantly increasing in complexity and supporting the rapid prototyping of such systems has become crucial to check the feasibility of extensions and optimizations, thereby reducing risks and, consequently, the cost of development. As modern software systems are also expected to be reused, extended, and adapted over a much longer lifetime than ever before, ensuring the maintainability of such systems is equally gaining relevance.In this paper, we present the development, optimization and maintenance of MoSo-PoLiTe, a framework for Software Product Line (SPL) testing, as a novel case study for rapid prototyping via metamodelling and programmed graph transformations.The first part of the case study evaluates the use of programmed graph transformations for optimizing an existing, hand-written system (MoSo-PoLiTe) via rapid prototyping of various strategies. In the second part, we present a complete re-engineering of the hand-written system with programmed graph transformations and provide a critical comparison of both implementations.Our results and conclusions indicate that metamodelling and programmed graph transformation are not only suitable techniques for rapid prototyping, but also lead to more maintainable systems.