Domain Specific
Languages: a practical
view
Leandro Marques do Nascimento
Ph.D. Candidate at UFPE
lmn2@cin.ufpe.br
1
Agenda
• Introduction
–
–
–
–
Concepts
Examples
Types of DSLs
Advantages and disadvantages of using DSLs
• Building a new Domain-Specific Language
– Development phases
– Understanding DSLs in details
– Tools for creating DSLs
• Xtext demo
• What community has done so far
2
Introduction
Domain-specific languages (DSLs) are languages tailored to a specific
application domain.
• DSLs offer substantial gains in expressiveness and
ease of use compared with general-purpose
programming languages in their domain of
application [1].
• Problems
– DSL development is hard, requiring both domain knowledge
and language development expertise. Few people have both
[1].
– The decision to develop a DSL is often postponed indefinitely, if
considered at all, and most DSLs never get beyond the
application library stage.
3
Examples of DSLs
• In addition to Excel, a natural example of
DSL:
– AutoCAD for architectural design
– ProEngineer for mechanical modeling
– Verilog for hardware description
– Mathematica for symbolic computing.
4
More examples of DSLs [2]
• Language level is related to productivity
DSL
Application Domain
Level
BNF
Syntax specification
NA
Excel
Spreadsheets
57
HTML
Hypertext web pages
22
LATEX
Typesetting
NA
Make
Software building
15
MATLAB
Technical computing
NA
SQL
Database queries
25
VHDL
Hardware design
17
-----------
--------------------------------------------------
---------------
Java
General-purpose
6 (comparison
only)
Level
5
Productivity Average per Staff
Month (FP)
1–3
5–10
4–8
10-20
9-15
16-23
16-23
15-30
24-55
30-50
>55
40-100
Types of DSLs [3]
• Textual DSLs
– Textual representation of a language that can be directly
(or indirectly) transformed into executable code
– Embedded DSLs
• Mix between General Purpose Languages (GPLs) and Textual
DSLs. Usually well know as application libraries (frameworks)
• Visual DSLs (or graphical)
– Based on visually representing a system a on
incremental transformations of those visual models into
executable code
– Synonym for Model Driven * (MDD, MDA, MDSE, etc.)
• Other types
– External / Internal
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DSLs: The good [4]
• Targeted abstractions mean DSL programs
express important information & hide details
– “You can really see what we’re talking about”
– DSLs can dramatically shorten the path between a
specification and an implementation
– Programs are shorter, easy do audit, maintain
• Enormous productivity increase
• From declarative abstractions, we can generate
multiple artifacts:
– Parser, printer, XML transaction, statistical analyzes
• Compiler can ensure properties of programs:
– Parser will return meta-data that describes errors
7
DSLs: The bad and the ugly [4]
• Challenge of routine features
– Include in DSL: replicate a lot of effort!
– Borrow from ‘host’ language: have to process host
language code
• Lack of tools
– DSLs often lack debuggers, profilers, IDE support, etc.,
because building them is labor intensive
• Reluctant customers
– Learning new languages is hard
• Poor documentation and training on new DSLs
– Limited knowledge and expertise on how to perform
domain analysis
8
DSLs: the main goal
• Gains in expressiveness and ease of use
– The future is end-user programming
9
Caught much attention from both Academia and Industry
• IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
(Vol. 35, No. 6)
– Special Section on Software Language Engineering
• The “Physics” of Notations: Toward a Scientific Basis for
Constructing Visual Notations in Software Engineering
Daniel L. Moody
http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TSE.2009.67
• Engineering of Framework-Specific Modeling Languages
Michał Antkiewicz, Krzysztof Czarnecki, Matthew Stephan
http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/TSE.2009.30
• Many different workshops, conferences and
symposiums on MD* and DSLs
10
Building a new Domain-Specific
Language
First, you should understand DSLs in details
11
Building a new Domain-Specific Language
• DSL development phases [1]
– Decision
• Decision in favor of a new DSL
– Analysis
• Domain knowledge is gathered.
– Design
• Relationship between the DSL and existing languages
• The formal nature of the design description
– Implementation
• Interpreter/Compiler/Application Generators
– Deployment
• Started using the new DSL for building up new apps
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Understanding DSLs in details - DSL classification [5]
• Notation FODA
13
DSL classification [5]
14
DSL classification [5]
15
DSL classification [5]
16
DSL classification [5]
17
DSL Tools with textual modeling [6]
•
•
•
•
Xtext
TEF (Textual Editing Framework)
TCS (Textual Concrete Syntax)
EMFText
• JetBrains MPS
• MontiCore, CodeWorker, IMP
• DSL2JDT, ETMOP, CAL
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DSL Tools with textual modeling [6]
• TMF Xtext (predessor oAW Xtext)
– http://xtext.org
– http://wiki.eclipse.org/TMF
• TEF Textual Editing Framework
– http://www2.informatik.hu-berlin.de/sam/meta-tools/tef
– http://developer.berlios.de/projects/tef/
• TCS Textual Concrete Syntax
– http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/TCS
– http://www.sciences.univ-nantes.fr/lina/atl/www/
• EMFText
– http://emftext.org
– http://st.inf.tu-dresden.de/reuseware/index.php/EMFText
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DSL Tools with textual modeling [6]
• JetBrains MPS
– http://www.jetbrains.com/mps
– Konstantin Solomatov
• MontiCore
– http://www.monticore.de
– RWTH Aachen, Academic
• CodeWorker
– http://www.codeworker.org/
– Cedric Lemaire
• IMP
– http://eclipse-imp.sourceforge.net/
– Robert M. Fuhrer
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DSL Example – Chess Game
Using the Chess game to understand DSL construction
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Xtext – Language Development
Framework
www.eclipse.org/Xtext/
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Create a Language
•
•
•
•
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Define the grammar
Add static analysis
Provide quickfixes
Implement an Interpreter
Grammar (Simple Arithmetics)
• Grammar describes how models can be parsed
Module:
'module' name=ID
(imports+=Import)*
(statements+=Statement)*;
Grammar
Statement:
Definition | Evaluation;
Definition:
'def' name=ID ('(' args+=DeclaredParameter
(',' args+=DeclaredParameter)* ')')?
':' expr=Expression ';';
DeclaredParameter:
name=ID;
Evaluation:
expression=Expression ';';
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Model
module SimpleArithmetics
def boxVolume(l,w,h) : l*w*h;
def cubeVolume(l) : boxVolume(l,l,l);
Chess Example - Grammar
Game:
"White:" whitePlayer=STRING
"Black:" blackPlayer=STRING
(moves+=Move)+;
Move:
AlgebraicMove | SpokenMove;
AlgebraicMove:
(piece=Piece)? source=Square (captures?='x'|'-') dest=Square;
SpokenMove:
piece=Piece 'at' source=Square
(captures?='captures' capturedPiece=Piece 'at' | 'moves to')
dest=Square;
terminal Square:
('a'..'h')('1'..'8');
enum Piece:
pawn
= 'P'
knight = 'N'
bishop = 'B'
rook
= 'R'
queen = 'Q'
king
= 'K'
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|
|
|
|
|
|
pawn = 'pawn' |
knight = 'knight' |
bishop = 'bishop' |
rook = 'rook' |
queen = 'queen' |
king = 'king';
Chess Example - Model
White: "Mayfield"
Black: "Trinks“
pawn at e2 moves to e4
pawn at f7 moves to g5
K b1 - c3
f7 - f5
queen at d1 moves to h5
// 1-0
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You can create a new view for your brand new language
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Community
• http://www.eclipse.org/Xtext/community/
– APPlause - Open source tool chain to produce native apps
for different devices such as Android, iPhone and. Heiko
Behrens, Peter Friese, et al
– Aranea - Messaging and infrastructure layer that uses Xtext
for generating the message and support classes. Patrick
Ruckstuhl
– ARText (part of Artop) - ARText, a textual language for the
specification of AUTOSAR systems. See
the very coolscreencasts. Sebastian Benz, Dana Wong
32
WebDSL [7]
application minimalac
entity User {
name :: String
password :: Secret
}
init{
var u := User{ name := "1" password := ("1" as Secret).digest()
u.save();
}
define page root(){
authentication()
" "
navigate protectedPage() { "go" }
}
define page protectedPage(){ "access granted" }
principal is User with credentials name, password
access control rules
rule page root(){true}
rule page protectedPage(){loggedIn()}
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};
References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
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M. Mernik, J. Heering, and A. Sloane, “When and how to develop domainspecific languages,” ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), vol. Vo.37 N.4, 2005, pp.
316-344.
JONES, C. 1996. SPR Programming Languages Table Release 8.2,
http://www.theadvisors.com/ langcomparison.htm. (Accessed April 2005). Later
release not available at publication.
M. Völter, “MD*/DSL Best Practices Update March 2011,” 2011, Available at
http://voelter.de/data/pub/DSLBestPractices-2011Update.pdf, Accessed in March
2011.
J. Gray, K. Fisher, C. Consel, G. Karsai, M. Mernik, and J.-P. Tolvanen, “Panel DSLs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” OOPSLA ’08: Companion to the 23rd
annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming, systems,
languages, and applications, 2008, Available at
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Truth-about-DSL, Accessed in March 2011.
B. Langlois, C.E. Jitia, and E. Jouenne, “Dsl classification,” OOPSLA 7th Workshop
on Domain Specific Modeling, Citeseer, 2007.
Bernhard Merkle, “Textual Modeling Tools: Overview and Penalty Shoot-out ”,
EclipseCON 2010, Available at www.infoq.com/presentations/Textual-ModelingTools, Accessed in March 2011.
WebDSL. http://webdsl.org/, Accessed in March 2011.
Questions?
Domain Specific
Languages: a practical
view
Leandro Marques do Nascimento
Ph.D. Candidate at UFPE
lmn2@cin.ufpe.br
“If you can't make it good, at least make it look good.”
Bill Gates
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