Specifying Software Languages: Grammars, Projectional Editors, and Unconventional Approaches

We discuss several approaches for defining software languages, together with Integrated Development Environments for them. Theoretical foundation is grammar-based models: they can be used where proven correctness of specifications is required. From a practical point of view, we discuss how language specification can be made more accessible by focusing on language workbenches and projectional editing, and discuss how it can be formalized. We also give a brief overview of unconventional ideas to language definition, and outline three open problems connected to the approaches we discuss

Model-Driven Development for Spring Boot Microservices

As microservices become more and more common, there is more interest in optimizing their development, making it faster, reducing the complexity and making it less error and bug prone. This work aims to explore how Model-driven Engineering (MDE) can be used to aid microservices’ development, especially Java microservices using Spring Boot. Firstly, this work starts by presenting its context, with a brief introduction to MDE and microservices, and how MDE can be used to facilitate microservices’ development. Then the State of the Art presents MDE base technologies and MDE-based solutions that can be used to develop microservices. Furthermore, a value analysis was also done, to explore the benefits of using MDE, and to define its value proposition. Lastly, a case study was elaborated following three different approaches, traditional development, DSL-based approach, and MDE-based tool approach, which were then compared by code quality and time required for development of the microservices. This work is especially interesting for someone who wants to develop Java microservices and wants to explore the different approaches and technologies to do so, namely by using MDE.À medida que os microserviços se tornam cada vez mais comuns, há mais interesse em otimizar seu desenvolvimento, otimizando o tempo de desenvolvimento, reduzindo a complexidade e tornando-o menos sujeito a erros e bugs. Este trabalho tem como objetivo explorar como é que Model-driven Engineering (MDE) pode ser usado para auxiliar o desenvolvimento de microserviços, especialmente microserviços Java usando Spring Boot. Em primeiro lugar, este trabalho começa apresentando seu contexto, com uma breve introdução ao MDE e microserviços, e explicando como é que MDE pode ser usado para facilitar o desenvolvimento de microserviços. Em seguida é apresentado o Estado da Arte, que apresenta tecnologias base de MDE e soluções baseadas em MDE (ferramentas), que podem ser utilizadas para desenvolver microserviços. Além disso, também foi feita uma análise de valor para explorar os benefícios do uso de MDE, e para definir sua proposta de valor. Por fim, foi elaborado um caso de estudo através de três abordagens diferentes, desenvolvimento tradicional, abordagem baseada em DSL, e abordagem utilizando uma ferramenta baseada em MDE, que foram então comparadas através da qualidade do código e pelo tempo necessário para o desenvolvimento dos microserviços. Este trabalho é especialmente interessante para quem quer desenvolver microsserviços Java e quer explorar as diferentes abordagens e tecnologias para o fazer, nomeadamente através da utilização de MDE

Flexible Views for View-based Model-driven Development

Modern software development faces the problem of fragmentation of information across heterogeneous artefacts in different modelling and programming languages. In this dissertation, the Vitruvius approach for view-based engineering is presented. Flexible views offer a compact definition of user-specific views on software systems, and can be defined the novel ModelJoin language. The process is supported by a change metamodel for metamodel evolution and change impact analysis

A Domain-Specific Language and Editor for Parallel Particle Methods

Domain-specific languages (DSLs) are of increasing importance in scientific high-performance computing to reduce development costs, raise the level of abstraction and, thus, ease scientific programming. However, designing and implementing DSLs is not an easy task, as it requires knowledge of the application domain and experience in language engineering and compilers. Consequently, many DSLs follow a weak approach using macros or text generators, which lack many of the features that make a DSL a comfortable for programmers. Some of these features---e.g., syntax highlighting, type inference, error reporting, and code completion---are easily provided by language workbenches, which combine language engineering techniques and tools in a common ecosystem. In this paper, we present the Parallel Particle-Mesh Environment (PPME), a DSL and development environment for numerical simulations based on particle methods and hybrid particle-mesh methods. PPME uses the meta programming system (MPS), a projectional language workbench. PPME is the successor of the Parallel Particle-Mesh Language (PPML), a Fortran-based DSL that used conventional implementation strategies. We analyze and compare both languages and demonstrate how the programmer's experience can be improved using static analyses and projectional editing. Furthermore, we present an explicit domain model for particle abstractions and the first formal type system for particle methods.Comment: Submitted to ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software on Dec. 25, 201

Gentleman : a lightweight web-based projectional editor

Lors de la conception et la manipulation de logiciel par modélisation, il est avantageux de bénéficier d’un grand degré de liberté au niveau de la présentation afin de comprendre l’information et prendre une action en exerçant peu d’effort cognitif et physique. Cette caractéristique doit aussi s’étendre aux outils que nous employons afin que ceux-ci augmentent nos capacités, plutôt que les restreindre. En génie logiciel, nous travaillons présentement à rehausser encore le niveau d’abstraction afin de réduire le rôle central du code décrit avec un langage de programmation à usage général. Ceci permettrait d’inclure les experts non techniques dans les activités de développement de logiciel. Cette approche, centralisée sur le domaine et l’expert, s’inscrit dans l’ingénierie dirigée par les modèles (IDM), où un modèle est produit et manipulé par divers experts et utilisateurs. Le modèle est alors décrit avec un langage créé spécifiquement pour un domaine d’application ou une tache, appelé langage dédié (DSL). Une technique utilisée pour créer ces modèles et leurs DSL est le projectional editing, qui permet d’utiliser des notations diverses interchangeables et d’étendre et composer facilement un langage. Toutefois, les solutions actuelles sont lourdes, spécifiques à une plateforme, et manquent considérablement d’utilisabilité, limitant ainsi l’usage et l’exploitation de cette approche. Pour mieux refléter les avantages du paradigme IDM avec le style projectionnel, nous introduisons dans cette thèse Gentleman, un éditeur projectionnel léger sur le web. Avec Gentleman, le développeur crée un modèle en combinant des concepts utilisés pour définir la structure du modèle et des projections pour les manipuler dans l’éditeur. Nous avons évalué Gentleman à travers une étude basée sur un groupe d’utilisateur. L’étude a confirmé sa capacité à créer et manipuler des modèles efficacement. Les participants ont noté qu’il est facile de prendre en main Gentleman et que l’interface est très intuitive comparativement aux éditeurs existants. Nous avons aussi intégré Gentleman avec succès à une plateforme web, démontrant ainsi ses capacités d’interopérabilité et l’avantage d’une solution web.In software activities and, more specifically, when modeling, the modeler should benefit from as much freedom as possible to understand the presented information and take action with minimal cognitive and mechanical effort. This characteristic should also apply to the tools used in the process so that they extend our capabilities rather than limit them. In the field of software engineering, current work aims to push the level of abstraction past general-purpose programming language into domain-specific modeling. This enables domain experts with various backgrounds to participate in software development activities. This vision is central to model-driven engineering (MDE) where, instead of code, various experts and users produce and manipulate domain-specific language (DSL). In recent years, projectional editing has proven to be a valid approach to creating and manipulating DSLs, as it supports various easily interchangeable notations and enables language extension and composition. However, current solutions are heavyweight, platform-specific, and suffer from poor usability. To better support this paradigm and minimize the risk of accidental complexity in terms of expressiveness, in this thesis, we introduce Gentleman, a lightweight web-based projectional editor. With Gentleman, a developer creates a model by combining concepts used to define its structure and projections to interact and manipulate them in the editor. We have evaluated Gentleman through a user study. The evaluation confirmed its capacity to create and manipulate models effectively. Most participants noted that the editor is very user-friendly and intuitive compared to existing editors. We have also successfully integrated Gentleman into a web application, demonstrating its interoperability and the benefit of a web solution

4th Workshop on View-Based, Aspect-Oriented and Orthographic Software Modelling : Proceedings, 2 March 2016, Karlsruhe, Germany

Modern software engineering paradigms, such as model-driven development, multi-view modelling, or role-based software development, use different types and combinations of abstraction techniques to decompose systems into human-tractable pieces. This leads to an increasing number of models and views that have to be considered, which presents fundamental challenges for engineers of complex softwareintensive systems. Software developers need technologies for operationally managing views of systems in a consistent way, and software architects require concepts that indicate in which way views and models should be developed, evolved, and navigated as projects evolve. The goal of this workshop is to distil a common understanding of existing approaches and current research directions in treating heterogeneous models of software and systems

Towards an Extensible Architecture and Tool Support for Model-based Verification.

Model-based software engineering (MBSE) brings models to the center of software and system design. Models are powerful abstractions used to support all phases of the software development life cycle of complex software. As these models grow larger and their complexity increases, they need to be verified and validated to preserve their correctness. One possible way to do so is by means of the use of formal methods. However, the availability of MBSE tools with support for validation and verification is limited, and they usually require the cumbersome deployment of software burdened by dependencies, preventing the adoption of these tools. This paper presents a web-based architecture designed to support the definition of domain models and provide translation capabilities to different verification formalisms. As a proof of concept for our architecture, we have developed a tool prototype that is light-weight, runs in the browser and supports: (i) definition of domain models represented as class diagrams and (ii) partial translation of class diagrams into the Alloy specification language, enabling verification of structural domain properties. We show how we have used this tool to verify properties for the public bus management system in the city of Málaga, Spain.This work was partially funded by Universidad de Málaga (Campus Internacional de Excelencia), and the Spanish Government under projects PID2021-125527NB-I00 and TED2021-130523B-I00. Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

ComPOS - a Domain-Specific Language for Composing Internet-of-Things Systems

Internet-of-Things (IoT) systems consist of spatially distributed interacting devices. In contrast to desktop applications, IoT systems are always running and need to deal with unresponsive devices and weak connectivity. In this thesis, we propose techniques for simplifying the development of such systems. The work addresses IoT systems organised as reusable services connected by compositions. We propose to program such compositions using stateful reactions that mediate messages. To this end, we have designed a domain-specific language (DSL), called ComPOS. To help systems operate partly in cases of weak connectivity, we propose that ComPOS aborts older reactions when newer messages arrive. We evaluate our DSL in home-automation and e-health scenarios. Understanding IoT systems can be hard, and different analyses can help explain how they work. To support analysis, we propose a conceptual runtime model based on relational reference attribute grammars. We demonstrate the approach by formulating and implementing a Device Dependency Analysis (DDA). The DDA finds sets of devices needed for given parts of the system to work. The ComPOS editor supports live programming to allow development while the system is running. We propose a methodology for live ComPOS programming which divides the development into three, iteratively applied, phases: finding services (explore), composing services (assemble), and abstracting compositions as new services (expose). When developing a DSL, it takes substantial effort to specify the syntax and semantics, to build tools like editors, and to integrate with the environment (in this case the underlying middleware). To reduce the effort needed to experiment with ComPOS, we have created a tool called Jatte. Jatte is a generic projectional editor that developers can tune using attribute grammars. We used Jatte to implement the ComPOS editor