Program comprehension for domain-specific languages

Abstract

In the past, we have been looking for program comprehension tools that are able to interconnect operational and behavioral views, aiming at aiding the software analyst to relate problem and program domains in order to reach a full understanding of software systems. In this paper we are concerned with Program Comprehension issues applied to Domain Specific Languages (DSLs). We are now willing to understand how techniques and tools for the comprehension of traditional programming languages fit in the understanding of DSLs. Being the language tailored for the description of problems in a specific domain, we believe that specific visualizations (at a higher abstraction level, closer to the problem level) could and should be defined to enhance the comprehension of the descriptions in that particular domain

Visualization of domain-specific programs' behavior

“…Under the hood, we used the extended version of Alma system to automatically generate operational and behavioral views of the input program 4 . In this section we show some results of the visualization, in Alma, of the Harvest Program 5 . Listing 2 shows a fragment of this program.…”

“…This means that the program domain concepts are at a much higher level than in a General-purpose Programming Language (GPL). Then, it is easier to infer the problem domain from the language definition and to create mappings between the concepts of both domains [5]. The approach for the visualization of Domain-Specific Programs (DSP) 1 , proposed in this paper, is based on the creation of mappings between both domains.…”

Interoperability of MAS DSMLs via horizontal model transformations

“…[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]) for facilitating the development of MASs. DSLs / DSMLs [21][22][23] have notations and constructs tailored toward a particular application domain (e.g. MAS) and help to the model-driven development (MDD) of MASs.…”

An approach to generating executable software specifications of an information system

“…Ovo rezultira time da sintaksa i semantika DSL jezika biva podignuta na veći nivo apstrakcije koji je bliži ljudskom načinu razmišljanja. [19] Tokom razvojnog procesa, eksperti iz datog domena se najčešće uključuju u fazi analize i tu se njihova uloga završava. Jedna od najznačajnih karakteristika DSL jezika jeste to što pruža mogućnost da se oni uključe u drugim, kasnijim fazama razvojnog ciklusa softverskog sistema i daju direktan doprinos u specificiranju aplikacije.…”

“…Oni su jednostavni za upotrebu i brzo se uče. [19] DSL jezici imaju i svoje nedostatke. Jedan od najvažnijih nedostatka je veoma niska interoperabilnost, kako međusobna tako i interoperabilnost sa standardnim programskim jezicima.…”