The tower of informatics models

Software science has always dealt with models of computation that associate meaning with syntactical construction. The link between that associate meaning with syntactical construction. The link between software science and software engineering has for many years been tenuous. A recent initiative, model-driven engineering (MDE), has begun to emphasize the role of models in software construction. Hitherto, the notions of ’model’ entertained by software scientists and engineers have differed, the former emphasizing meaning and the latter emphasizing toolbased engineering practice. This essay finds the two approaches consistent, and proposes to integrate them in a framework that allows one model to explain another, in a sense that includes both implementation and validation.