CS2125 Paper Review Form - Winter 2018

Reviewer: Ramy Shahin

Paper Title: Meaningful Modeling: What’s the Semantics of “Semantics”?

Author(s): David Harel, Bernhard Rumpe

1) Is the paper technically correct?
 [*] Yes
 [ ] Mostly (minor flaws, but mostly solid)
 [ ] No

2) Originality
 [ ] Very good (very novel, trailblazing work)
 [ ] Good 
 [ ] Marginal (very incremental)
 [*] Poor (little or nothing that is new)

3) Technical Depth
 [ ] Very good (comparable to best conference papers)
 [ ] Good (comparable to typical conference papers)
 [*] Marginal depth
 [ ] Little or no depth

4) Impact/Significance
 [ ] Very significant
 [ ] Significant
 [*] Marginal significance.
 [ ] Little or no significance.

5) Presentation
 [ ] Very well written
 [*] Generally well written
 [ ] Readable
 [ ] Needs considerable work
 [ ] Unacceptably bad

6) Overall Rating (for an IEEE Computer article, not a conference paper)
 [ ] Strong accept (award quality)
 [*] Accept (high quality - would argue for acceptance)
 [ ] Weak Accept (borderline, but lean towards acceptance)
 [ ] Weak Reject (not sure why this paper was published)


7) Summary of the paper's main contribution and rationale
   for your recommendation. (1-2 paragraphs)

This article clearly articulates the problem of defining semantics for modeling notations (UML in particular). It doesn’t attempt to provide a solution to the problem though, and thus there is no claim for novelty here. It provides a clear explanation of foundations (syntax, semantics, semantic domains, and semantic mapping), as well as the meta-notations used to define each of those foundational components. 

To clarify these concepts, the article uses some small examples (both textual and graphical). In addition, it lists some pitfalls pertaining to thinking about semantics. At the end, it lists some questions that need to be answered by anyone trying to define semantics for a modeling notation.


8) List 1-3 strengths of the paper.  (1-2 sentences each,
identified as S1, S2, S3.)

S1 - The presentation of foundational concepts is clear and accurate. Examples were used effectively to demonstrate those concepts.

S2 - The semantics pitfalls sidebar concisely surveys many misconceptions about semantics.


9) List 1-3 weaknesses of the paper (1-2 sentences each,
identified as W1, W2, W3.)

W1 - The article doesn’t provide any novel insights into defining
semantics.