KERML_ — Association participant features, misleading term and textual keyword

The specification and models carry over the terms "association end" and "participant" from SysML 1.x, leaving the meaning of "participant" as it was, but changing the meaning of "association end" to be same as "participant", and providing no term equivalent to SysML 1.x "association end" (see below). This shift makes KerML/SysML 2 associations difficult to understand and discuss among current SysMLers (judging from experience during the submission process), and probably those new to SysML as well.

The specification term "association end" refers to what SySML 1.x calls a "participant" property, a property of links (instances of associations) that each identify exactly one of the things being linked by each link. The library element Link has a feature named "participant", with exactly the same meaning as in SysML 1.x, that generalizes "association end" features, such as the source and target features of BinaryLink. The term "association end" in SysML 1.x refers to properties (typically) of associated classes that on each instance of one associated class identify (potentially zero or multiple) instances of the other associated class that are linked by the association. KerML can model these kind of features, but does not give a name for them.

Clauses 7.4.5 (Associations) and 9.2.3.1 (Links Overview) say

Associations are classifiers that classify links between things (see 9.2.3.1) At least two owned features of an association must be end features (see 7.3.4.2), its association ends, which identify the things being linked by (at the "ends" of) each link (exactly one thing per end, which might be the same thing).

The end features of an association determine the participants in the links that are instances of the association and, as such, effectively have multiplicity of "1" relative to the association.

The participant Feature of Link is the most general associationEnd, identifying the things being linked by (at the "ends" of) each Link (exactly one thing per end, which might be the same things).

where Association::associationEnds identify participant features.

The above use of "association end" in the specifiation is reflected in the textual syntax for assocations by the keyword "end" identifying these participant features. Clause 8.4.4.5.1 (Associations) says:

n-aries have this form:

uassoc A specializes Links::Link {
end feature e1 subsets Links::Link::participant;
end feature e2 subsets Links::Link::participant;
...
end feature eN subsets Links::Link::participant; }

The Link instance for an Association is thus a tuple of participants, where each participant is a single value of an associationEnd of the Association.

The quoted text above is only about the equivalent of SysML 1.x participant properties, but might seem to current SysMLers to be about something equivalent to SysML 1.x association ends.