An environment for composing software permits the separation of control functions from information about the context in which the control functions operate. The software composition environment is used to make a system which will translate XML documents into models and vice-versa. The translation system is used to translate an XML document having one DTD into an XML document having another DTD by translating the first XML document into a model representing the semantics of the XML document and translating the model into the second XML document (2005). The system for translating XML documents into models employs a general technique for translating any XML documents into a mirror model (2107) that reflects the structure of the XML document and a general technique of using tag pattern models (2109) to obtain information from one model and using it to make or modify another model. In the system for translating XML document, the tag pattern models are used to translate mirror models into semantic models and vice-versa.