109 urn:lsid:arphahub.com:pub:3dc5f44e-8666-58db-bc76-a455210e8891 JUCS - Journal of Universal Computer Science jucs 0948-695X 0948-6968 Journal of Universal Computer Science 10.3897/jucs.2020.060 24110 Research Article D.2.2 - Design Tools and Techniques D.2 - SOFTWARE ENGINEERING Model Driven Software Engineering Meta-Workbenches: An XTools Approach Clark Tony tony.clark@aston.ac.uk 1 Gulden Jens 2 Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom Aston University Birmingham United Kingdom Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands Utrecht University Utrecht Netherlands

Corresponding author: Tony Clark (tony.clark@aston.ac.uk).

Academic editor:

2020 28 09 2020 26 9 1148 1176 711EA8A1-D80C-54AC-993E-D796CBC84A93 5508589 14 05 2020 25 09 2020 Tony Clark, Jens Gulden This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-ND 4.0). This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.

Model Driven Software Engineering aims to provide a quality assured process for designing and generating software. Modelling frameworks that offer technologies for domain specific language and associated tool construction are called language workbenches. Since modelling is itself a domain, there are benefits to applying a workbenchbased approach to the construction of modelling languages and tools. Such a framework is a meta-modelling tool and those that can generate themselves are reflective metatools. This article reviews the current state of the art for modelling tools and proposes a set of reflective meta-modelling tool requirements. The XTools framework has been designed as a reflective meta-tool and is used as a benchmark.