Model-Driven Constraint Programming (1002.2897v1)

Abstract: Constraint programming can definitely be seen as a model-driven paradigm. The users write programs for modeling problems. These programs are mapped to executable models to calculate the solutions. This paper focuses on efficient model management (definition and transformation). From this point of view, we propose to revisit the design of constraint-programming systems. A model-driven architecture is introduced to map solving-independent constraint models to solving-dependent decision models. Several important questions are examined, such as the need for a visual highlevel modeling language, and the quality of metamodeling techniques to implement the transformations. A main result is the s-COMMA platform that efficiently implements the chain from modeling to solving constraint problems