Software modeling is considered as the high-level design technique for describing abstract statements about software systems. While some practitioners create models for the early analysis of their design decisions and generating code from their models, some practitioners create models for the eased communication among stakeholders. There also exist practitioners who ignore modeling and directly proceed with coding. We aim in this paper to understand the challenges that practitioners face with in their software modeling activities. We surveyed 80 practitioners from 18 countries who work in 18 different industries. We focussed on 8 categories of software modeling challenges: (i) managing the language complexity, (ii) extending modeling languages, (iii) domain-specific modeling environments, (iv) developing formal modeling languages, (v) analysing models, (vi) separation of concerns, (vii) transforming models, and (viii) managing models. As the results show, the separation of concerns is the least challenging category for practitioners, while analysing models is the top challenging category. Various concrete challenges in different categories have been observed, including (i) using the modeling languages with steep learning-curve, (ii) extending the language semantics without inconsistencies and updating the language tools accordingly, (iii) evolving the DSL tools with new requirements, (iv) defining the languages’ formal semantics in terms of the translations in any formal languages, (v) decomposing models into separate viewpoints and analysing the consistencies between different viewpoint models, (vi) the consistent model transformation and the model synchronisations, (vii) using model checkers for formal analysis, and (viii) versioning models.

软件建模被认为是描述有关软件系统的抽象陈述的高级设计技术。虽然一些从业人员创建模型以用于对其设计决策的早期分析并从其模型生成代码，但一些从业人员创建模型以简化利益相关者之间的沟通。还有一些从业者忽略建模而直接进行编码。本文旨在了解从业人员在其软件建模活动中面临的挑战。我们对来自18个国家/地区的80位从业人员进行了调查，他们从事18个不同行业。我们专注于8类软件建模挑战：（i）管理语言复杂性，（ii）扩展建模语言，（iii）特定领域的建模环境，（iv）开发正式的建模语言，（v）分析模型，（vi）关注点分离，（vii）转换模型，以及（viii）管理模型。结果表明，关注点分离对于从业者来说是最没有挑战性的类别，而分析模型是最困难的类别。已经观察到了不同类别中的各种具体挑战，其中包括：（i）使用具有陡峭学习曲线的建模语言；（ii）在没有不一致的情况下扩展语言语义，并相应地更新语言工具，（iii）使DSL工具具有新的要求，（iv）根据任何形式语言的翻译定义语言的形式语义，（v）将模型分解为单独的观点，并分析不同观点模型之间的一致性，（vi）一致的模型转换和模型同步，（vii）使用模型检查器进行形式分析，以及（viii）版本控制模型。