Electronic Communications of the EASST
Volume 25 (2010)

Proceedings of the Workshop
Visual Formalisms for Patterns

at VL/HCC 2009

Preface

Paolo Bottoni, Esther Guerra and Juan de Lara

2 pages

Guest Editors: Paolo Bottoni, Esther Guerra, Juan de Lara
Managing Editors: Tiziana Margaria, Julia Padberg, Gabriele Taentzer
ECEASST Home Page: http://www.easst.org/eceasst/ ISSN 1863-2122



ECEASST

Preface
This proceedings contains selected and extended papers presented at VFfP’09, the first Inter-

national Workshop on Visual Formalisms for Patterns. The workshop was held as a satellite event
of the 2009 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing, VL/HCC
2009. The workshop brought together researchers interested in the definition, usage and analysis
of patterns through visual formalisms, which couple the simplicity of traditional methods for
pattern expression with solid foundations for pattern-based activities.

Patterns are used in different disciplines as a way to record expert knowledge for problem
solving in specific areas. In Software Engineering, they are increasingly used for the definition
of software applications and frameworks, as well as in Model-Driven Engineering, to indicate
parts of required architectures, drive code refactorings, or build model-to-model transformations.
Their systematic use promotes quality, standardization, reusability and maintainability of soft-
ware artefacts. The full realisation of their power is however hindered by the lack of a standard
formalization of the notion of pattern. Presentations of patterns are typically given through natu-
ral language to explain their motivation, context and consequences; programming code to show
usages of the pattern; and diagrams to communicate their structure and behaviour.

Several researchers have indicated the limitations of the current semi-formal devices for pat-
tern definition – generally based on domain modelling languages, such as UML for design pat-
terns, or Coloured Petri Nets for workflow – and research is active to propose rigorous for-
malisms, methodologies and languages for pattern definition in specific domains, as well as to
propose general models of patterns.

The availability of formalisms will make common practices involving patterns, such as pattern
discovery, pattern enforcement, pattern-based refactoring, etc., simpler and amenable to automa-
tion, and open new perspectives for pattern composition and analysis of pattern consequences.
This workshop was conceived as a forum to communicate, discuss and advance in these direc-
tions.

The VFfP’09 technical programme included the keynote presentation “Pinning Down Pat-
terns” by Prof. John Hosking, Director of the Centre for Software Innovation of The University
of Auckland (New Zealand). The workshop technical contributions were carefully reviewed by
three referees, and the program committee selected 6 long and 3 short papers. The workshop
was organized in in three technical sessions (“Pattern Definition and Formalization”, “Patterns
in Process and Test Engineering” and “Patterns and Visualization”) and finished with a discus-
sion panel on the benefits, limits and uses of pattern formalization. For these final proceedings,
the papers were extended and revised according to the feedback obtained in the workshop, an
additional round of revisions was organized and a total of 8 papers were finally accepted.

We would like to thank the members of the Program Committee and the secondary reviewers
for their excellent work, they are listed below. We would also like to thank the organizing
committee of VL/HCC’09 for their constant support, and to all workshop participants, which
helped to make the first edition of VFfP a success!.

February 2010.
Paolo Bottoni, Esther Guerra, Juan de Lara.

PC chairs of VFfP’09.

1 / 2 Volume 25 (2010)



Preface of VFfP’09

Program Committee

• Jing Dong, University of Texas, Dallas.
• Amnon H. Eden, University of Essex.
• Gregor Engels, University of Paderborn.
• Reiko Heckel, University of Leicester.
• John Hosking, University of Auckland.
• Dae-Kyoo Kim, Oakland University.
• Soon-Kyeong Kim, University of Queensland.
• Susana Montero, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
• Francesco Parisi Presicce, University of Rome, “Sapienza”.
• Claudia Pons, University of La Plata.
• Nick Russell, Technical University of Eindhoven.
• Michael Stal, Siemens AG.
• David Stotts, University of North Carolina.
• Gerson Sunyé, Université de Nantes.
• Toufik Taibi, University of Western Ontario.
• Kang Zhang, University of Texas, Dallas.
• Albert Zundorf, University of Kassel .

External Reviewers

Nina Aschenbrenner, Christian Gerth, Jun Kong, Christian Soltenborn, Yajing Zhao.

Proc. VFfP 2009 2 / 2