1.
Is there a future for MT languages?
Jordi Cabot, Loli Burgueño, Sébastien Gérard
@softmodeling – jordicabot.com July 2019

2.
panel

3.
To transform, or not to transform, this is the WRONG
question
- Shakespeare

4.
Why are we having this
discussion now?

5.
An LSTM-Based Neural Network
Architecture for Model Transformations –
Burgueño, Cabot, Gérard, Models’19

6.
https://mdse-book.com/
(Personal) perceptions on MTLS:
• Research on MTL falling out of fashion
• No new MT languages
• Companies do not use them
Let’s have this discussion as a
community: True? Why? What next?

7.
What have people said?
(63 answers)

8.
Average Expertise = 10.61 years

9.
Simple
Mature,
standard

10.
If you don't use any MT Language, can you give at
least a couple of reasons why not?
complex setup and IDE-specific dependencies
transformation engines are mostly research prototypes
No real debugging Hard to hire staff poor documentation
ATL when simple transformations, Java when complex transformations
complex to understand
learning curve
Practitioners without a background on MDE are skeptical
performanceNot adapted to the web

11.
Too much
expectations BUT
MTL concepts
made their way
into GPLs

12.
Thoughts on the future of MTLs
Lack support from easily comparable,
strong, empirical metrics
Scalability is a must
An experienced tool developer may be quicker with an
MT API than by learning a new language, and less
dependent on proprietary tools
Non-existence of a homogeneous community
Little standardization of useful languages
Undoubtedly needed and useful
Need better showcase to industryMTs suffers from the
misconception of modelling
MTL are important. But we have to
break out from classical transformation
problems and approaches
Not mature for industrial applications
Stupendous and I hope
they will be even more used
MT may have longevity in
Data Model Transformation
We won’t be able to design a system without
working with models due to its complexity
MTs are overrated and over-researched

13.
What do YOU say?: Is There a future for MTLs???
(and if so, what does this future look like?)

14.
• Were you surprised by these results?
• Do you think we have answers for the criticisms?
• If they have been solved already, how to convince
the industry? Is it a marketing or a technical
problem? (e.g. MDE vs low-code)
• Do we need a Yet Another MTL? Or we just stick
to Java?
• What should we do as a MT community (if
anything)?
• Do you plan to continue doing research on MTLs?
• Should we just move to the next big thing?