Electronic Communications of the EASST
Volume 31 (2010)

Proceedings of the
Second International Workshop on

Visual Formalisms for Patterns
(VFfP 2010)

Preface

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

These proceedings contain selected and extended papers presented at VFfP’10, the second
International Workshop on Visual Formalisms for Patterns. The workshop was held as a satel-
lite event of the 2010 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing,
VL/HCC 2010 at Madrid. This series of workshops brings 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 workshop technical contributions were carefully reviewed by three referees, and the pro-
gram committee selected 7 long and 1 short papers, 6 of which were finally accepted for these
post-proceedings. In addition, the technical programme included the keynote presentation “A
formal approach to patterns in MDE” by Prof. Yngve Lamo, from the Bergen University Col-
lege (Norway), also included in these post-proceedings. The workshop was organized in three
technical sessions (“Architectural Patterns and Refactorings”, “Patterns for User Interfaces and
Interaction Design” and “Specification Patterns”) and finished with a discussion panel on the
benefits, limits and uses of pattern formalization.

We would like to thank the members of the Program Committee and the secondary reviewers
for their excellent work – they are listed below – as well as the editorial team of ECEASST for
their constant support.

April 2011.
Paolo Bottoni, Esther Guerra, Juan de Lara.

PC chairs of VFfP’10.

1 / 2 Volume 31 (2010)



Preface

Program Committee

• Jing Dong, University of Texas, Dallas.
• Amnon H. Eden, University of Essex.
• Gregor Engels, University of Paderborn.
• Franca Garzotto, Politecnico di Milano.
• Reiko Heckel, University of Leicester.
• John Hosking, University of Auckland.
• Dae-Kyoo Kim, Oakland University.
• Soon-Kyeong Kim, University of Queensland.
• Gerrit Meixner, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI).
• Susana Montero, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
• Francesco Parisi Presicce, University of Rome, “Sapienza”.
• Claudia Pons, University of La Plata.
• Michael Stal, Siemens AG.
• Gerson Sunyé, Université de Nantes.
• Toufik Taibi, Independent consultant, Ontario.
• Kang Zhang, University of Texas, Dallas.

External Reviewers

Marc Seissler, Sangsig Kim, Christian Soltenborn.

Proc. VFfP 2010 2 / 2