Developing Domain-specific Languages in Concept-based Development Method

Y. Liu and N. Zhang (PRC)

Keywords

Domain-Specific Languages, Reuse, Evolving Algebra,Attribute Grammar, Language Concept

Abstract

Domain-specific languages(DSLs) can help to improve the productivity of domain applications. However, the time and cost to develop the DSLs proved to be bottlenecks. This paper introduces how to develop DSLs using the concept based development method. The development processes of DSLs using it can be divided into two phases: the first phase is to define and specify concepts which are basic units of DSLs; the second phase is to assemble DSLs with the concepts. The two phases are independent; therefore, a DSL can be implemented by domain experts and lan guage experts together. on the basis of this idea, a meta language, DD, is defined for specifying DSLs. Each con cept is defined as an independent module, which can help to improve the reusability of the DSLs developments. The concepts of the DSLs are divided into two kinds: element concepts and complement concepts, which makes the defi nitions of DSLs more flexible. In addition, attribute gram mars and evolving algebras are used to specify the seman tics of DSLs, which makes the specifications intuitive.

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