Metamodelling for Grammarware Researchers

A metamodel is variously defined as a model of a model, a definition of a language, a description of abstract syntax, and a description of a domain. It is all of these things and more. Metamodels can be confusing, and explaining why they are constructed, what you can do with them, and how they are built can be challenging, especially when trying to bridge the gap between the modelware and grammarware communities. In this example-driven mini-tutorial, we introduce the key concepts and ideas behind metamodelling and explain why metamodels are useful, and particularly how they differ from grammar-based approaches to language development. We give some tips on how grammarware researchers can explain what they do to modelware researchers, and vice versa, in the spirit of interdisciplinarity and improving collaboration.