Enhancing Expressivity, Modularity and Rigour of Graphical Data Modelling with Fragmenta

Graphical data (or conceptual) modelling, software engineering’s most popular application of modelling, needs an uplift. Graphical data models easily become unwieldy, even for trivial medium-sized systems. Practitioners long for improved modelling primitives and mechanisms that improve modelling, namely, its expressiveness, the way it is experienced and its appeal. These are the drivers of Fragmenta , a formal data- and meta-modelling framework with advanced means to separate concerns. Fragmenta ’s novelties include: (i) multilevel modelling through vertical refinement, (ii) improved horizontal decomposition and composition of fragments through proxies, (iii) virtuals for lighter inheritance, and (iv) graphical model constraints. Fragmenta is the first data modelling framework with a mathematical foundation and a supporting implementation, combining both vertical and horizontal means to separate concerns.