CS2125 Paper Review Form - Winter 2018

Reviewer: Laura Walsh

Paper Title: A Taxonomy of Model Transformations

Author(s): T. Mens, K. Czarnecki and P. Van Gorp

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

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

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

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

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

6) Overall Rating
 [ ] Strong accept (award quality)
 [x] 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 paper presents a variety of criteria by which modellers can compare model transformation tools and techniques. They outline their taxonomy which can be used to categorize the wide variety of tools available. The motivation behind their work is to help modelers decide which tool would be best suited for a particular situation. 


The information proposed is not extremely novel as the authors are not really generating new knowledge but gathering a collection of existing knowledge. That said, it is presented and summarized very well. Apart from a few spelling errors, the paper is well written. The concepts are communicated clearly and concisely throughout the work.


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

S1. The authors gave a very clear overview of the research field of model transformations. The text is well written and very informative. They do a good job of presenting their material in a simple, understandable way. 


S2. Their work is well motivated - they do a good job of explaining that the wide variety of tools available to modelers can present a challenge when it is time to decide on which to use. The information collected in this study seems like it would be very helpful to modelers in this position.


S3. The authors present some helpful questions throughout their paper to help modelers narrow in on which type of tool they'll need. (Summarized at the end of the paper: "What needs to be transformed into what?", "What are the important characteristics of a model transformation?", "What are the success criteria for a transformation language or tool?" and "Which mechanisms can be used for model transformations?")



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

W1. The authors introduce two running examples at the start of the paper but do not reference them again in the paper. These scenarios presented aren't really running examples and maybe shouldn't have been named as such. They may not have been needed at all since I don't think they add a lot to the understanding of the material covered in the paper.

W2. They mention that one of their goals of the paper is to "position concrete model transformation tools and techniques within the domain". However, it seemed to me that they didn't explicitly mention many tool and techniques.

W3. The authors did not go into detail about how they decided to choose the criteria that they covered in this paper, and if they considered and omitted any other bases for comparison. It would have been interesting to read more about how they made the research method decisions that they did.