Domain Specific Languages
25 Feb 2010-International Journal of Computer Applications (Foundation of Computer Science FCS)-Vol. 1, Iss: 21, pp 105-111
TL;DR: A number of DSLs spanning various phases of software development life cycle in terms of features that elucidates their advantages over general purpose languages and perform in depth study by practically applying a few open source DSLs: ‘Cascading’, Naked Objects Framework and RSpec.
Abstract: To match the needs of the fast paced generation, the speed of computing has also increased enormously. But, there is a limit to which the processor speed can be amplified. Hence in order to increase productivity, there is a need to change focus from processing time to programming time. Reduction in programming time can be achieved by identifying the domain to which the task belongs and using an appropriate Domain Specific Language (DSL). DSLs are constrained to use terms and concepts pertaining to an explicit domain making it much easier for the programmers to understand and learn, and cuts down the development time drastically. In this paper, we will understand what a DSL is; explore a number of DSLs spanning various phases of software development life cycle in terms of features that elucidates their advantages over general purpose languages and perform in depth study by practically applying a few open source DSLs: ‘Cascading’, Naked Objects Framework and RSpec.
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Dissertation•
10 Mar 2017
TL;DR: The thesis evaluates Casanova 2 by comparing it with representative languages, that are often used for video games, on expressiveness, compactness, speed, ease-of-development, and maintainability and concludes that casanova 2 achieves its goal of offering a game development language that can be successfully used by a wide variety of developers to build video games.
Abstract: In today’s society, the pervasiveness and sales of video games is at an all-time high. Video games are used in a variety of application scenarios, from pure entertainment to supporting research, raising social awareness, and training. Video games are no longer developed only by professional programmers, but also by experts in other domains. This has made the problems surrounding the process of game development increasingly evident. One such problem is the lack of a clear methodology for defining video games, supported by user-friendly tools. Indeed, the available tools for making video games are either too specific or too general. When too specific, the abstractions provided by the tool are so poor that only few game genres are expressible. When too general the abstractions provided by the tool are so generic that even expressing simple domain concepts requires a lot of effort. These problems lead to the process of developing video games being a costly one, in terms of time, money, and necessary knowledge. Such costs negatively affect the development process, and may even lead to the impossibility to develop certain games. When a solution is offered that reduces the cost of game development, this will benefit in particular the developers for whom game development is not their main job. This thesis starts by analyzing the process of making a video game, and examines the available tools for making them. It then proposes a solution to the high costs of making games. This solution comes in the shape of a programming language that is exclusively focused on the domain of video games. This language, which we call Casanova 2 (inspired by its predecessor language Casanova, with which it shares goals and philosophy), is designed to offer abstractions built around the typical aspects of video games. Casanova 2 is not bound to any video game genre. Due to the specificity of the domain of game development, and the strong requirements it brings with it, the compiler behind the Casanova 2 language is able to apply code analysis. Together with a series of optimization layers, it is able to turn complex domain code into a highly-performant executable. Casanova 2 comes with a series of advantages such as embedded networking, and high-performance encapsulation support, which positively affects the production of games. The thesis evaluates Casanova 2 by comparing it with representative languages, that are often used for video games, on expressiveness, compactness, speed, ease-of-development, and maintainability. It demonstrates that Casanova 2 is either equivalent to or outranks all competitors in these respects. This warrants the conclusion that Casanova 2 achieves its goal of offering a game development language that can be successfully used by a wide variety of developers to build video games.
23 citations
18 Apr 2017
TL;DR: The vision for holistic continuous software performance assessment is presented, which is being implemented in the BenchFlow tool, which enables performance testing and analysis practices to be pervasively integrated in continuous development lifecycle activities.
Abstract: In agile, fast and continuous development lifecycles, software performance analysis is fundamental to confidently release continuously improved software versions. Researchers and industry practitioners have identified the importance of integrating performance testing in agile development processes in a timely and efficient way. However, existing techniques are fragmented and not integrated taking into account the heterogeneous skills of the users developing polyglot distributed software, and their need to automate performance practices as they are integrated in the whole lifecycle without breaking its intrinsic velocity. In this paper we present our vision for holistic continuous software performance assessment, which is being implemented in the BenchFlow tool. BenchFlow enables performance testing and analysis practices to be pervasively integrated in continuous development lifecycle activities. Users can specify performance activities (e.g., standard performance tests) by relying on an expressive Domain Specific Language for objective-driven performance analysis. Collected performance knowledge can be thus reused to speed up performance activities throughout the entire process.
22 citations
Cites background from "Domain Specific Languages"
...The design of DomainSpecific Languages is also studied in the literature [16, 44], with a large number of possible choices for language syntax and semantics....
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Posted Content•
TL;DR: The paper presents a domain-specific language for modeling buildings and technical facilities that is implemented in a software-based tool used by domain experts and thus hopefully providing a suitable contribution to modeling the cyber-physical world.
Abstract: A lot of current buildings are operated energy inefficient and offer a great potential to reduce the overall energy consumption and CO2 emission. Detecting these inefficiencies is a complicated task and needs domain experts that are able to identify them. Most approaches try to support detection by focussing on monitoring the building's operation and visualizing data. Instead our approach focuses on using techniques taken from the cyber-physical systems' modeling domain. We create a model of the building and show how we constrain the model by OCL-like rules to support a sound specification which can be matched against monitoring results afterwards. The paper presents our domain-specific language for modeling buildings and technical facilities that is implemented in a software-based tool used by domain experts and thus hopefully providing a suitable contribution to modeling the cyber-physical world.
22 citations
25 May 2019
TL;DR: The approach, based on a novel data ordering and typestate analysis, consists of preconditions for automatically determining when it is safe and possibly advantageous to convert sequential streams to parallel and unorder or de-parallelize already parallel streams.
Abstract: Streaming APIs are becoming more pervasive in mainstream Object-Oriented programming languages. For example, the Stream API introduced in Java 8 allows for functional-like, MapReduce-style operations in processing both finite and infinite data structures. However, using this API efficiently involves subtle considerations like determining when it is best for stream operations to run in parallel, when running operations in parallel can be less efficient, and when it is safe to run in parallel due to possible lambda expression side-effects. In this paper, we present an automated refactoring approach that assists developers in writing efficient stream code in a semantics-preserving fashion. The approach, based on a novel data ordering and typestate analysis, consists of preconditions for automatically determining when it is safe and possibly advantageous to convert sequential streams to parallel and unorder or de-parallelize already parallel streams. The approach was implemented as a plug-in to the Eclipse IDE, uses the WALA and SAFE analysis frameworks, and was evaluated on 11 Java projects consisting of ?642K lines of code. We found that 57 of 157 candidate streams (36.31%) were refactorable, and an average speedup of 3.49 on performance tests was observed. The results indicate that the approach is useful in optimizing stream code to their full potential.
22 citations
TL;DR: This work structure this space in order to shed light on and compare the different domain-specific approaches to deal with crosscutting concerns, report on a corpus of 36 DSALs covering the space, discuss a set of design considerations, and provide a taxonomy of DSAL implementation approaches.
Abstract: Domain-Specific Aspect Languages (DSALs) are Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) designed to express crosscutting concerns. Compared to DSLs, their aspectual nature greatly amplifies the language design space. We structure this space in order to shed light on and compare the different domain-specific approaches to deal with crosscutting concerns. We report on a corpus of 36 DSALs covering the space, discuss a set of design considerations, and provide a taxonomy of DSAL implementation approaches. This work serves as a frame of reference to DSAL and DSL researchers, enabling further advances in the field, and to developers as a guide for DSAL implementations.
22 citations
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TL;DR: The literature available on the topic of domain-specific languages as used for the construction and maintenance of software systems is surveyed, and a selection of 75 key publications in the area is listed.
Abstract: We survey the literature available on the topic of domain-specific languages as used for the construction and maintenance of software systems. We list a selection of 75 key publications in the area, and provide a summary for each of the papers. Moreover, we discuss terminology, risks and benefits, example domain-specific languages, design methodologies, and implementation techniques.
1,538 citations
Book•
23 Sep 2010
TL;DR: This book covers a variety of different techniques available for DSLs and can be used with whatever programming language you happen to be using, most of the examples are in Java or C#.
Abstract: Designed as a wide-ranging guide to Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) and how to approach building them, this book covers a variety of different techniques available for DSLs. The goal is to provide readers with enough information to make an informed choice about whether or not to use a DSL and what kinds of DSL techniques to employ. Part I is a 150-page narrative overview that gives you a broad understanding of general principles. The reference material in Parts II through VI provides the details and examples you willneed to get started using the various techniques discussed. Both internal and external DSL topics are covered, in addition to alternative computational models and code generation. Although the general principles and patterns presented can be used with whatever programming language you happen to be using, most of the examples are in Java or C#.
908 citations