Domain-specific visual languages (DSVLs) are concise and useful tools that allow the rapid development of the behavior and/or structure of applications in well-defined domains. These languages are typically developed specifically for a domain, and have a strong cohesion to the domain concepts, which often appear as primitives in the language. The strong cohesion between DSVL language primitives and the domain is a benefit for development by domain experts, but can be a drawback when the domain evolves – even when that evolution appears insignificant. This paper presents a domain-specific visual language developed expressly for the evolution of domain-specific visual languages, and uses concepts from graph-rewriting to specify and carry out the transformation of the models built using the original DSVL. 1.

I love you, and I’m proud of you too. Thanks for being here for me. Jon iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I give many thanks to my advisor, Dr. Gabor Karsai for being the Best All-Around Advisor™. Gabor, without your excellent teaching skills and motivational abilities, I would not be in the position I am today. Vanderbilt is lucky to have you, as will be any other student under your tutelage. I also thank very heartily the other members of my committee. Dr. Janos Sztipanovits, for his political insight (and vision for my future career); Dr. Akos Ledeczi, for holding my feet to the fire when it comes to sticking up for the value of my research, and also social interactions within ISIS; Dr. Greg Nordstrom, for (as usual) providing valuable comments in the discussion of all things metamodeling related, not to mention being an all-around good guy to bounce ideas all-around with; and of course Dr. Doug