Tools in Model-Driven Web Development: A Systematic Mapping Study

Abstract

Model-driven development (MDD) is an application development paradigm that prioritizes the construction of models instead of code, and it affords several advantages. In this context, tools play an important role in supporting MDD in a more efficient way. As regards model-driven web development (MDWD), several tools have been proposed for this environment and it is necessary to identify the characteristics of those tools. This study aimed to identify and classify published articles related to MDWD tools. To this end, a systematic mapping study (SMS) was performed among eight relevant digital databases. By performing searches on specified strings, 1,654 articles were obtained. After the selection process, 79 articles were considered primary studies in addressing the nine research questions posed. The publication of articles on MDWD tools has been uniformly maintained over time, indicating that research will be sustained in this area. Unified modeling language (UML) in the context of MDWD tools, is the type of notation most reported in the literature. Finally, code generation and productivity increase have been reported as the main benefits of MDWD tools.