Documentation management and generation for domain-specific models

Abstract

Documentation is essential to every system as it captures knowledge and design intent that are otherwise hidden in the implementation or not available at all. Automatic documentation has been of interest mainly because of the reduction in effort that is required to create documentation and easier maintenance. The models in Model Integrated Computing contain a lot of valuable information about the system under development that can be utilized for documentation purposes. This work develops novel techniques for documenting domain-specific models and providing the documentation through intuitive navigable web pages. The prototype tool has two main parts: one for the management of textual descriptions associated with models and the other for exporting graphical views, navigation information, attributes and descriptions into HTML/JavaScript pages. In addition to presenting the techniques and tools developed, the thesis also looks at possible alternative designs and compares the strengths of the presented techniques with those of the alternatives.