Systematic literature review of domain-oriented specification techniques
Robert Deckers, Patricia Lago
Abstract
The popularity of domain-specific languages and model driven development has made the tacit use of domain knowledge in system development more tangible. Our vision is a development process where a (software) system specification is based on multiple domain models, and where the specification method is built from cognitive concepts, presumably derived from natural language. To realize this vision, we evaluate and reflect upon the existing literature in domain-oriented specification techniques. We designed and conducted a systematic literature review on domain-oriented specification techniques. We identified 53 primary studies, populated the classification framework for each study, and summarized our findings per classification aspect. We found many approaches for creating domain models or domain-specific languages. Observations include: (i) most methods are defined incompletely; (ii) none offers methodical support for the use of domain models or domain-specific languages to create other specifications; (iii) there are specification techniques to integrate models in general, but no study offers methodical support for multiple domain models. The results indicate which topics need further research and which can instead be reused to realize our vision on system development. Editor’s note: Open Science material was validated by the Journal of Systems and Software Open Science Board.