Composing Programming Languages by Combining Action-Semantics Modules

Doh, Kyung-Goo; Mosses, Peter D.

doi:10.7146/brics.v10i53.21825

Cited by 7 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Initial collections of funcos were tentatively proposed in the original paper on component-based language development and specification [5] and in a case study that provided a specification of the core of Standard ML [13]. A larger collection of about 100 funcos has subsequently been developed in connection with a course on concepts of programming languages at Swansea, and used in the analysis of the illustrative examples of program fragments from Ada, C, C++, Haskell and Java given in [44,Part II].…”

Section: Fundamental Constructsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An agile approach to language modelling and development

Johnstone

Mosses

Scott

2010

Innovations Syst Softw Eng

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We have developed novel techniques for component-based specification of programming languages. In our approach, the semantics of each fundamental programming construct is specified independently, using an inherently modular framework such that no reformulation is needed when constructs are combined. A language specification consists of an unrestricted context-free grammar for the syntax of programs, together with an analysis of each language construct in terms of fundamental constructs. An open-ended collection of fundamental constructs is currently being developed. When supported by appropriate tools, our techniques allow a more agile approach to the design, modelling, and implementation of programming and domain-specific languages. In particular, our approach encourages language designers to proceed incrementally, using prototype implementations generated from specifications to test tentative designs. The components of our specifications are independent and highly reusable, so initial language specifications can be rapidly produced, and can easily evolve in response to changing design decisions. In this paper, we outline our approach, and relate it to the practices and principles of agile modelling.

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Section: Fundamental Constructsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An agile approach to language modelling and development

Johnstone

Mosses

Scott

2010

Innovations Syst Softw Eng

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“…To solve this problem, several research works ( [2,6], [5] and [1]) propose a new style to describe programming languages. These papers propose that a programming language description should be formed by the union of programming language elements.…”

Section: Modular Action Semantics Extensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aspect-Oriented Action Semantics Descriptions

Menezes

2008

Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science

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The modularity of programming language descriptions allows the designer to describe each programming language feature in a separated module that can be studied independently of others. Action Semantics is a formal notation that produce modular descriptions of programming languages. This paper proposes to use concepts of Aspect-oriented programming to improve the modularity of action semantics descriptions. To achieve this goal, an aspect-oriented notation is proposed and applied to describe some programming language concepts.

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“…Doh and Mosses [12] realized that this conventional modular structure was a major impediment to explicit reuse of parts of ASDs. For example, suppose that an AS for Standard ML has already been given [25], and we are writing an AS for Java [8].…”

Section: Action Semanticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With the conventional modular structure of an ASD, however, it is usually not possible to reuse entire modules, so one has to copy and paste the required parts. Doh and Mosses [12] proposed a flatter modular structure for ASDs, with the description of each construct being a separate module. This new structure allows a complete language to be described simply by listing the names of the modules for the included constructs, and fully supports explicit reuse of parts of semantic descriptions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Action Environment

Brand

Iversen²,

Mosses

2006

Science of Computer Programming

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Some basic programming constructs (e.g., conditional statements) are found in many different programming languages, and can often be included without change when a new language is designed. When writing a semantic description of a language, however, it is usually not possible to reuse parts of previous descriptions without change.This paper introduces a new Action Semantic Description Formalism, ASDF, which has been designed specifically for giving reusable action semantic descriptions of individual language constructs. An initial case study in the use of ASDF has already provided reusable descriptions of all the basic constructs underlying Core ML.The paper also describes the Action Environment, a new environment supporting use and validation of ASDF descriptions. The Action Environment has been implemented on top of the ASF+SDF Meta-Environment, exploiting recent advances in techniques for integration of different formalisms, and inheriting all the main features of the Meta-Environment.

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Composing Programming Languages by Combining Action-Semantics Modules

Cited by 7 publications

References 11 publications

An agile approach to language modelling and development

An agile approach to language modelling and development

Aspect-Oriented Action Semantics Descriptions

An Action Environment

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