Misconceptions about Potency-Based Deep Instantiation

Multi-level modeling languages differ in their approaches for controlling the properties of model elements over multiple modeling levels. Over the years the original approach for deeply characterizing model elements, the potency-based deep instantiation mechanism, has received a number of criticisms related to its flexibility, level stability, ontological soundness, type safety, and ability to reduce accidental complexity. However, some of these criticisms are founded on misconceptions and thus cannot usefully inform multi-level modeling language designs. In this paper we identify and clarify these misconceptions in order to help guide future considerations of language feature trade-offs and design choices.