My personal opening of the panel about "EXECUTABLE MODELING FOR SYSTEMS, SOFTWARE AND CYBER-PHYSICAL SYSTEMS" at EXE'17.

1. PANEL @ EXE 2017, AUSTIN, TX, USA.
EXECUTABLE MODELING FOR SYSTEMS,
SOFTWARE AND CYBER-PHYSICAL SYSTEMS
BENOIT COMBEMALE
PROFESSOR, UNIV. TOULOUSE, FRANCE
HTTP://COMBEMALE.FR
BENOIT.COMBEMALE@IRIT.FR
@BCOMBEMALE

2. What is Executable Modeling?
Panel on Executable Modeling
Benoit Combemale @ EXE, Sep. 2017
My understanding of executable modeling:
▸ activity consisting in defining executable specification of
behavioral phenomena
▸ definition and execution of behavioral models (business
processes, orchestrations, functional chains, activities,
protocols, scenarios...)
⁉️ programming is a special case of executable modeling J

3. Who Care About Executable Modeling?
Panel on Executable Modeling
Benoit Combemale @ EXE, Sep. 2017
▸ Software engineers mostly care about programming
▸ Other domain experts care about executable (domain) modeling!
▸ In the context of systems engineering (when not limited to interface
engineering or system architecture)
▸ Especially for
▸ Understanding complex phenomenon
▸ Early V&V of behavioral properties over heterogeneous concerns (incl.
hardware, behavioral physical phenomenon, etc.)
▸ Application domains: all kinds of CPS (incl. CPPS, Industry 4.0…),
IoT, etc.

4. GEMOC: Tool Support for Executable (Domain) Modeling
Panel on Executable Modeling
Benoit Combemale @ EXE, Sep. 2017
http://gemoc.org/studio
Benoit Combemale, Julien Deantoni, Olivier Barais, Arnaud Blouin, Erwan Bousse, Cédric Brun,
Thomas Degueule and Didier Vojtisek, "A Solution to the TTC'15 Model Execution Case Using the
GEMOC Studio," In 8th Transformation Tool Contest (TTC), 2015. Overall Winner
• EMF, Xtext, Sirius
• Metaprogramming Approaches (Xtend/K3, ALE, XMOF, Java)
• Sirius Animator (graphical representation of debuggers)
• Melange (language reuse)
• Generative Approaches (execution trace, checking)
• MoCCML (concurrency model specification)
• BCOoL (behavioral coordination)
• Generic Execution Framework
• Graphical animation
• Breakpoint definition on model element
• Multi-dimensional and efficient trace management
• Model omniscient debugging facilities (incl., timeline, step
backward, stimuli management, etc.)
• Concurrency Analysis
• Coordination of Models
• Domain-Specific Plugins

5. Open Challenges
Panel on Executable Modeling
Benoit Combemale @ EXE, Sep. 2017
▸ Coordination of discrete and continuous models is still an
active field
▸ Explore executable modeling for design-space
exploration and tradeoff analysis
▸ Live modeling, combining execution and variability
management, etc.
▸ Automatic generation of tool support for any xDS(M)L
[Mayerhofer et al., GRAND Workshop @ STAF’17]
▸ Continuum and retro-action loop between executable
modeling and models@runtime.