Domain Specific Languages in the Real World

Note: I am going to start a series of blog posts about industry trends and how they will be represented at EclipseCon and Agile ALM Connect.  Last week was about Support for Emerging Languages.

Domain Specific Languages (DSL) is a term you hear more and more about as people try to simply a programming environment to a specific purpose.   Languages like Scala, Groovy and Eclipse Xtext are making it easier to create DSLs.   However, with any technology or term it is always useful to see real examples, more than just Hello World.

At EclipseCon 2012 we will have a DSL track that features real world DSL examples from companies like BMT Car IT, Google, Sanvik Coromant and Sigasi:

 Program, thou shalt behave! will feature how BMW Car IT has created a new tool, called Jnario, that lets you describe the behavior of software in a business-readable, domain-specific language.

Xtext success story at Google review lessons learn while Google developed custom editors for Google’s protocol buffer descriptors.

In DESAGN – A DSL for engineer-to-order,  Sandvik Coromant, who builds cutting tools for the manufacturing industry, will discuss their use of Xtext to create a demand driven expression language and a 3D modeling language.

Bringing the power of Eclipse to Digital Hardware designers will feature the story of Sigasi who have built an Eclipse based IDE for VHDL.

and finally

YAKINDU SCT – Domain-Sepcific Statecharts features the modular workbench for embedded systems, supporting state charts and block diagrams.

 

There will also be sessions on particular DSL technology, including:

Light-weight IDE extensibility for custom DSLs in Groovy which will show how the Groovy-Eclipse plugin uses DSL descriptors for creating DSL.

Xtext – Best Practice will cover  tips required for anyone wanting to use Xtext.

Win Friends and Influence People…with DSLs presents the ‘7 Habits of Successful DSL Projects’

Xcore: Ecore Meets Xtext is the latest technology Ed Merks is developing, so I guess it must be good.  🙂

and finally

Domain Specific Languages is an overview an introduction to the pros and cons of DSL implementation techniques.

There will also be a 3 hour tutorial for Java Developers who want to use Xtext to create their own DSL.

If you are interested in Domain Specific Languages then EclipseCon has the education you need.  I hope you will join us and discover what is possible.