Systematic literature review of domain-oriented specification techniques

Journal article, 2022

Context: 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. Goal: To realize this vision, we evaluate and reflect upon the existing literature in domain-oriented specification techniques. Method: We designed and conducted a systematic literature review on domain-oriented specification techniques. Results: 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. Conclusion: 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.