A Meta-Circular Basis for Model-Based Language Engineering

Meta-modelling is a technique that facilitates the construction of new languages to be used in system development. Although meta-modelling is supported by a number of tools and technologies, notably the Meta Object Facility from the OMG, there is no widely accepted precise basis for meta-modelling that can be used to develop and study language-based approaches to system development. Recent advances in meta-modelling have proposed several approaches to mixing types and instances, and allowing constraints to hold over multiple levels. This article proposes a collection of key characteristic features that are used to define a foundational self-contained unifying meta-language that is evaluated through several examples.