Transformations and Abstractions

Second lecture in the course on model-driven software development that I teach at TU Delft. I talked about domain analysis, interaction design, and domain-driven design.

We're pleased to announce the 0.5 release of the Spoofax language workbench, an Eclipse plugin that seamlessly integrates Java versions of Stratego and SDF into Eclipse. Spoofax can be used to develop new languages and transformations based on SDF and Stratego in the Eclipse environment.

Stratego and SDF have traditonally been implemented using C, but to increase portability we have developed Java versions of the Stratego compiler and the JSGLR parser for SDF. These new implementations are seamlessly integrated into the Spoofax environment, but can also be used as stand-alone tools.

IDE support has become essential for developers to be productive with programming languages. Spoofax provides IDE support for Stratego and SDF for developers of languages and transformations. It also aids in the development of IDE support for new languages: from the first version of an !SDF grammar, an editor can be created for the language and used side-by-side with the definition in Eclipse. Using Stratego, the editor can be enhanced with transformations and semantic editor services such as reference resolving and content completion. The screenshot below illustrates some of the IDE features supported by editors created with Spoofax:

Spoofax can be downloaded from spoofax.org or strategoxt.org/Spoofax. When installed in Eclipse, the plugin provides a "New project" wizard that creates a new skeleton project illustrating some of the Spoofax features. The website also includes a tour further showcasing the features of the workbench. For migrating C-based Stratego projects to Spoofax, please read our FAQ or contact us in case of other questions.

An overview of the architecture of Spoofax and how Spoofax can be used in the development of new languages and IDE services is given in the paper The Spoofax Language Workbench. Rules for Declarative Specification of Languages and IDEs by Lennart Kats and Eelco Visser, accepted for publication at SPLASH/OOPSLA 2010. Further documentation can be found on the Spoofax website.

Our paper on the Spoofax language workbench was accepted for presentation at OOPSLA 2010 (which is now part of SPLASH).

Lennart C. L. Kats, Eelco Visser. The Spoofax Language Workbench. Rules for Declarative Specification of Languages and IDEs. In Martin Rinard, editor, Proceedings of the 25th Annual ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications, OOPSLA 2010, October 17-21, 2009, Reno, NV, USA. 2010. [researchr]

Abstract: Domain-specific languages offer high expressive power focused on a particular problem domain, abstracting over the accidental complexity associated with traditional software development. Creating a new DSL requires the construction of a parser, semantic analysis, transformations, and code generation. Adding high quality integrated development environment (IDE) support is essential for developers to be productive with domain-specific languages. In this paper we present Spoofax, a language workbench that enables efficient, agile development of textual domain-specific languages with state-of-the-art IDE support based on real-time parsing and semantic analysis of programs derived from concise, declarative specifications. Spoofax combines language processing techniques for parser generation, metaprogramming, and IDE development into a single environment used to develop languages and use generated editors at the same time. We describe idioms for the specification of language semantics based on rewrite rules, showing how analyses can be reused for transformation and code generation as well as for editor services such as error marking, reference resolving, and content completion. To implement these services we use language-parametric editor services that can be configured for a particular language, and can be dynamically loaded in the same Eclipse environment for direct use. We report on our experience in using Spoofax for the development of new languages.

Eelco Visser. Performing Systematic Literature Reviews with Researchr: Tool Demonstration. Technical Report TUD-SERG-2010-010, Software Engineering Research Group, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, May 2010. [researchr]

In this paper, I describe the integrated workflow for performing systematic reviews with researchr, a web application for management of bibliographic data. Researchr semantically links publications to authors, journals, proceedings, and conferences, supporting reliable browsing. Publications can be classified using public (shared) tags. Researchr has over a million publication records, mainly in computer science. The core of the collection is based on the DBLP database (as provided via its XML export), but is extended with contributions from users. Researchr is open for contributions; users can contribute missing publications and can make corrections to publication records in the database and add missing information such as abstracts and citations. The quality of such modifications is guarded by a reputation system. Users can use researchr to provide a profile of their research with publications. More importantly, the site supports literature reviews, by creating bibiographies, collections of publications about a topic of choice. In this paper I describe the elements of the systematic reviewing workflow in researchr. Performing a systematic review consists of creating a bibliography, defining and executing a search strategy, defining classification schemes, and reviewing and classifying papers.