Textual model-based software/system architecture documentation using MPS

abstract

A system architecture provides essential communication means between the architect and the user of the system diminishing thus the risk of misunderstanding during the development phase. In many domains, the tools used for documentation are word processors, typically Microsoft Word. However such tools allow to manipulate text with little structure only thus potentially yielding many inconsistencies in the document. In this paper, we report on a case study making use of textual models and model-based editors in order to develop such a documentation system for Siemens AG. We propose here to transfer these techniques to a new domain: (non-necessarily software) system documentation. The use of models allows to introduce more semantics into the editor, with the concrete effect of imposing more structure on the document to ensure the consistency of the document and thus prevent issues earlier in the development. We implemented the above process using the model-based programming environment MPS.