Improving Domain-Specific Language Reuse with Software Product Line Techniques

Developing a domain-specific language (DSL) or a composition of DSLs to model a system concern, such as deploying and configuring software components to meet real-time scheduling constraints, is time consuming. Ideally, developers should be able to reuse DSLs and DSL compositions across projects to amortize development effort. Reusing DSLs is hard, however, because they're often designed to precisely describe a single domain or concern. A new approach uses techniques from software product lines (SPLs) to improve the reusability of a DSL, DSL composition, or supporting tool by providing traceability of language concepts to DSL design. A case study of four DSLs demonstrates the need for—and benefits of—applying SPL reuse techniques to DSLs.     

Formalizing and testing the consistency of DSL transformations

A domain specific language (DSL) focuses on the essential concepts in a specific problem domain, and abstracts from low-level implementation details. The development of DSLs usually centers around the meta-model, grammar and code generator, possibly extended with transformations to analysis models. Typically, little attention is given to the formal semantics of the language, whereas this is essential for reasoning about DSL models, and for assessing the correctness of the generated code and analysis models. We argue that the semantics of a DSL should be defined explicitly and independently of any code generator, to avoid all kinds of complexities from low-level implementation details. As the generated analysis models must reflect some of these implementation details, we propose to formalize them separately. To assess the correctness and consistency of the generated code and analysis models in a practical way, we use conformance testing. We extensively illustrate this general approach using specific formalizations for an industrial DSL on collision prevention. We do not aim for a generic semantic model for any DSL, but this specific DSL indicates the potential of a modular semantics to facilitate reuse among DSLs.     

DropsBox: the Dresden Open Software Toolbox

The Dresden Open Software Toolbox (DropsBox) is a software modelling toolbox consisting of a set of open source tools developed by the Software Technology Group at TU Dresden. The DropsBox is built on top of the Eclipse Platform and the Eclipse Modeling Framework. The DropsBox contributes to the development and application of domain-specific language changes (DSLs) in model-driven software development. It can be customised by tool and language developers to support various activities of a DSL’s life cycle ranging from language design to language application and evolution. In this paper, we provide an overview of the DSL life cycle, the DropsBox tools, and their interaction on a common example. Furthermore, we discuss our experiences in developing and integrating tools for DropsBox in an academic environment.     

A DSL toolkit for deferring architectural decisions in DSL-based software design

A number of mature toolkits and language workbenches for DSL-based design have been proposed, making DSL-based design attractive for many projects. These toolkits preselect many architectural decision options. However, in many cases it would be beneficial for DSL-based design to decide for the DSL’s architecture later on in a DSL project, once the requirements and the domain have been sufficiently understood. We propose a language and a number of DSLs for DSL-based design and development that combine important benefits of different DSL toolkits in a unique way. Our approach specifically targets at deferring architectural decisions in DSL-based design. As a consequence, the architect can choose, even late in a DSL project, for options such as whether to provide the DSL as one or more external or embedded DSLs and whether to use an explicit language model or not .     

Domain-Specific Languages: What, Why, How

Domain-specific languages (DSLs) are being increasingly used as a realistic approach to address a program family. That is, a set of programs that shares enough commonalities to be considered as a whole. These programs may already exist or be expected to be developed. In this situation, in principle, software development can benefit from introducing a DSL in that (1) it offers concise and specific notations to express a member of the program family, and (2) it enables the development of safe code thanks to its restricted semantics and/or requirements for additional information.The Compose group has developed DSLs for various domains such as device drivers, active networking, and process scheduling, and built some experience in designing and implementing DSLs. In this talk we will report on the outcomes of this line of work. In particular, we will attempt to provide a practical definition of a DSL, and give the conditions to make this approach successful. We will discuss actual benefits of the DSL approach. Finally, we will outline a methodology to design and implement a DSL.     

Grammar‐driven generation of domain‐specific language debuggers

Domain‐specific languages (DSLs) assist a software developer (or end‐user) in writing a program using idioms that are similar to the abstractions found in a specific problem domain. Tool support for DSLs is lacking when compared with the capabilities provided for standard general‐purpose languages (GPLs), such as Java and C++. For example, support for debugging a program written in a DSL is often non‐existent. The lack of a debugger at the proper abstraction level limits an end‐user's ability to discover and locate faults in a DSL program. This paper describes a grammar‐driven technique to build a debugging tool generation framework from existing DSL grammars. The DSL grammars are used to generate the hooks needed to interface with a supporting infrastructure constructed for an integrated development environment that assists in debugging a program written in a DSL. The contribution represents a coordinated approach to bring essential software tools (e.g. debuggers) to different types of DSLs (e.g. imperative, declarative, and hybrid). This approach hides from the end‐users the accidental complexities associated with expanding the focus of a language environment to include debuggers. The research described in this paper addresses a long‐term goal of empowering end‐users with development tools for particular DSL problem domains at the proper level of abstraction without depending on a specific GPL. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Language Evolver Lever — Tool Demonstration —

Since many domains are constantly evolving, the associated domain specific languages (DSL) inevitably have to evolve too, to retain their value. But the evolution of a DSL can be very expensive, since existing words of the language (i.e. programs) and tools have to be adapted according to the changes of the DSL itself. In such cases, these costs seriously limit the adoption of DSLs.This paper presents Lever, a tool for the evolutionary development of DSLs. Lever aims at making evolutionary changes to a DSL much cheaper by automating the adaptation of the DSL parser as well as existing words and providing additional support for the correct adaptation of existing tools (e.g. program generators). This way, Lever simplifies DSL maintenance and paves the ground for bottom-up DSL development.     

On designing safe and flexible embedded DSLs with Java 5

Although embedded DSLs are widely used in both functional and dynamic languages they are yet to be widely accepted in the Java community. The best available examples are projects like jMock and Hibernate Criteria Query. In this paper we introduce the design of three novel practical embedded DSLs that we designed to showcase the power of Java language and specifically the changes introduced in Java 5. One of those DSLs is fully implemented as an open source project and is gathering momentum in the community. We proceed to discuss the approaches that allow designing safe and flexible DSLs by extracting generic patterns where possible and describing more specific idioms where necessary. It is our goal that this paper would serve as a starting point for someone designing an embedded DSL that takes full advantage of the Java 5 features.     

A domain specific language for spatial simulation scenarios

This article describes DSL3S, a domain specific modelling language for Spatial Simulation in the field of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Techniques such as cellular automata and agent-based modelling have long been used to capture and simulate the temporal dynamics of spatial information. Tools commonly employed to implement spatial simulation models include code libraries and pre-compiled models; the former require advanced programming skills while the latter impose relevant constraints on application scope. Previous attempts to produce domain specific languages in the field have invariably resulted in new textual programming languages (e.g. SELES, NetLogo, Ocelet) that are platform specific and in some cases with weak GIS support and interoperability. DSL3S synthesises relevant concepts of spatial simulation in a UML profile, that allows the design of simulation models through the arrangement of graphical elements. An implementation of this language is also presented, that relies on Model Driven Development (MDD) tools distributed with the Eclipse IDE. This includes a code generation infrastructure, that produces ready to run simulations from DSL3S models, supported by the MASON simulation tool-kit. Finally, DSL3S models for three simple and classical simulations allows to better illustrate and discuss the usage of the language.     

Program comprehension of domain-specific and general-purpose languages: comparison using a family of experiments

Domain-specific languages (DSLs) are often argued to have a simpler notation than general-purpose languages (GPLs), since the notation is adapted to the specific problem domain. Consequently, the impact of domain relevance on the creation of the problem representation is believed to improve programmers’ efficiency and accuracy when using DSLs compared with using similar solutions like application libraries in GPLs. Most of the common beliefs have been based upon qualitative conclusions drawn by developers. Rather than implementing the same problem in a DSL and in a GPL and comparing the efficiency and accuracy of each approach, developers often compare the implementation of a new program in a DSL to their previous experiences implementing similar programs in GPLs. Such a conclusion may or may not be valid. This paper takes a more skeptical approach to acceptance of those beliefs. By reporting on a family of three empirical studies comparing DSLs and GPLs in different domains. The results of the studies showed that when using a DSL, developers are more accurate and more efficient in program comprehension than when using a GPL. These results validate some of the long- held beliefs of the DSL community that until now were only supported by anecdotal evidence.     

Measuring the complexity of domain-specific languages developed using MDD

The standard ISO/IEC 25010 (SQuaRE) defines appropriateness as one of the three components of functional suitability, the other two components being completeness and correctness. As users of domain-specific language (DSL) are quite often domain experts with limited programming skills, a DSL might be considered appropriate if the resulting domain-specific programs do not contain an excessive amount of nondomain-related programming elements. This paper describes a metric for measuring the appropriateness of DSLs that are developed using model-driven development (MDD), its evaluation and use. The metric measures the depth of the deepest domain-specific command within abstract syntax trees generated by a DSL. It is aimed at being used during the development of a new DSL and for comparing different DSLs defined over the same domain. It is assumed that during MDD, the metamodel describes the domain-independent part of the DSL, while the model supplies the domain-specific part. This resembles the implementation of DSLs using existing metaprogramming tools that provide off-the-shelf implementations of programming constructs but require manual implementation of the domain-specific language elements.     

An approach for the systematic development of domain‐specific languages

Building tailored software systems for a particular application domain is a complex task. For this reason, domain‐specific languages (DSLs) receive a constantly growing attention in recent years. So far the main focus of DSL research is on case studies and experience reports for the development of individual DSLs, design approaches and implementation techniques for DSLs, and the integration of DSLs with other software development approaches on a technical level. In this paper, we identify and describe the different activities that we conduct when engineering a DSL, and describe how these activities can be combined in order to define a tailored DSL engineering process. Our research results are based on the experiences we gained from multiple different DSL development projects and prototyping experiments. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pragmatic reuse for DSML development

Software and Systems Modeling - By bridging the semantic gap, domain-specific language (DSLs) serve an important role in the conquest to allow domain experts to model their systems themselves. In...     

MontiCore: a framework for compositional development of domain specific languages

Domain specific languages (DSLs) are increasingly used today. Coping with complex language definitions, evolving them in a structured way, and ensuring their error freeness are the main challenges of DSL design and implementation. The use of modular language definitions and composition operators are therefore inevitable in the independent development of language components. In this article, we discuss these arising issues by describing a framework for the compositional development of textual DSLs and their supporting tools. We use a redundance-free definition of a readable concrete syntax and a comprehensible abstract syntax as both representations significantly overlap in their structure. For enhancing the usability of the abstract syntax, we added concepts like associations and inheritance to a grammar-based definition in order to build up arbitrary graphs (as known from metamodeling). Two modularity concepts, grammar inheritance and embedding, are discussed. They permit compositional language definition and thus simplify the extension of languages based on already existing ones. We demonstrate that compositional engineering of new languages is a useful concept when project-individual DSLs with appropriate tool support are defined.     

Program comprehension of domain-specific and general-purpose languages: replication of a family of experiments using integrated development environments

Domain-specific languages (DSLs) allow developers to write code at a higher level of abstraction compared with general-purpose languages (GPLs). Developers often use DSLs to reduce the complexity of GPLs. Our previous study found that developers performed program comprehension tasks more accurately and efficiently with DSLs than with corresponding APIs in GPLs. This study replicates our previous study to validate and extend the results when developers use IDEs to perform program comprehension tasks. We performed a dependent replication of a family of experiments. We made two specific changes to the original study: (1) participants used IDEs to perform the program comprehension tasks, to address a threat to validity in the original experiment and (2) each participant performed program comprehension tasks on either DSLs or GPLs, not both as in the original experiment. The results of the replication are consistent with and expanded the results of the original study. Developers are significantly more effective and efficient in tool-based program comprehension when using a DSL than when using a corresponding API in a GPL. The results indicate that, where a DSL is available, developers will perform program comprehension better using the DSL than when using the corresponding API in a GPL.     

Ontological approach for DSL development

This paper presents a project whose main objective is to explore the ontological based development of Domain Specific Languages (DSL), more precisely, of their underlying Grammar. After reviewing the basic concepts characterizing Ontologies and DSLs, we introduce a tool, Onto2Gra, that takes profit of the knowledge described by the ontology and automatically generates a grammar for a DSL that allows to discourse about the domain described by that ontology. This approach represents a rigorous method to create, in a secure and effective way, a grammar for a new specialized language restricted to a concrete domain. The usual process of creating a grammar from the scratch is, as every creative action, difficult, slow and error prone; so this proposal is, from a grammar engineering point of view, of uttermost importance. After the grammar generation phase, the Grammar Engineer can manipulate it to add syntactic sugar to improve the final language quality or even to add specific semantic actions. The Onto2Gra project is composed of three engines. The main one is OWL2DSL, the component that converts an OWL ontology into a complete Attribute Grammar for the construction of an internal representation of all the input data. The two additional modules are Onto2OWL, converts ontologies written in OntoDL into standard OWL, and DDesc2OWL, converts domain instances written in the new DSL into the initial OWL ontology.     

Leveraging Software Product Lines Engineering in the development of external DSLs: A systematic literature review

The use of domain-specific languages (DSLs) has become a successful technique in the development of complex systems. Consequently, nowadays we can find a large variety of DSLs for diverse purposes. However, not all these DSLs are completely different; many of them share certain commonalities coming from similar modeling patterns – such as state machines or petri nets – used for several purposes. In this scenario, the challenge for language designers is to take advantage of the commonalities existing among similar DSLs by reusing, as much as possible, formerly defined language constructs. The objective is to leverage previous engineering efforts to minimize implementation from scratch. To this end, recent research in software language engineering proposes the use of product line engineering, thus introducing the notion of language product lines. Nowadays, there are several approaches that result useful in the construction of language product lines. In this article, we report on an effort for organizing the literature on language product line engineering. More precisely, we propose a definition for the life-cycle of language product lines, and we use it to analyze the capabilities of current approaches. In addition, we provide a mapping between each approach and the technological space it supports.     

Domain-Specific Languages: A Systematic Mapping Study

Context: In this study we report on a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) for Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs), based on an automatic search including primary studies from journals, conferences, and workshops during the period from 2006 until 2012.Objective: The main objective of the described work was to perform an SMS on DSLs to better understand the DSL research field, identify research trends, and any possible open issues. The set of research questions was inspired by a DSL survey paper published in 2005.Method: We conducted a SMS over 5 stages: defining research questions, conducting the search, screening, classifying, and data extraction. Our SMS included 1153 candidate primary studies from the ISI Web of Science and ACM Digital Library, 390 primary studies were classified after screening.Results: This SMS discusses two main research questions: research space and trends/demographics of the literature within the field of DSLs. Both research questions are further subdivided into several research sub-questions. The results from the first research question clearly show that the DSL community focuses more on the development of new techniques/methods rather than investigating the integrations of DSLs with other software engineering processes or measuring the effectiveness of DSL approaches. Furthermore, there is a clear lack of evaluation research. Amongst different DSL development phases more attention is needed in regard to domain analysis, validation, and maintenance. The second research question revealed that the number of publications remains stable, and has not increased over the years. Top cited papers and venues are mentioned, as well as identifying the more active institutions carrying DSL research.Conclusion: The statistical findings regarding research questions paint an interesting picture about the mainstreams of the DSL community, as well as open issues where researchers can improve their research in their future work.     

Implementing an embedded compiler using program transformation rules

Domain‐specific languages (DSLs) are well‐recognized to ease programming and improve robustness for a specific domain, by providing high‐level domain‐specific notations and checks of domain‐specific properties. The compiler of a DSL, however, is often difficult to develop and maintain, because of the need to define a specific treatment for a large and potentially increasing number of language constructs. To address this issue, we propose an approach for specifying a DSL compiler using control‐flow sensitive concrete‐syntax based matching rules. These rules either collect information about the source code to carry out checks or perform transformations to carry out compilation. Because rules only mention the relevant constructs, using their concrete syntax, and hide the complexity of control‐flow graph traversal, it is easy to understand the purpose of each rule. Furthermore, new compilation steps can be added using only a small number of lines of code. We explore this approach in the context of the z2z DSL for network gateway development and show that it is beneficial to implement the core of its compiler in this manner.Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.