Industrial applications of ASF+SDF

In recent years, a number of Dutch companies have used the algebraic specification formalism ASF+SDF. Bank MeesPierson has specified a language for describing interest rate products, their translation into COBOL, and their generation from interactive questionnaires. A consultancy company has specified a language to represent the company's object-oriented models, and the compilation of this language into Access. Bank ABN-AMRO has started investigating the use of algebraic specifications for renovating legacy COBOL systems. We discuss the implications of such projects for teaching algebraic specifications and software engineering, and the role students have been playing in these projects

Application Software, Domain-Specific Languages, and Language Design Assistants

While application software does the real work, domain-specific languages (DSLs) are tools to help produce it efficiently, and language design assistants in turn are meta-tools to help produce DSLs quickly. DSLs are already in wide use (HTML for web pages, Excel macros for spreadsheet applications, VHDL for hardware design, ...), but many more will be needed for both new as well as existing application domains. Language design assistants to help develop them currently exist only in the basic form of language development systems. After a quick look at domain-specific languages, and especially their relationship to application libraries, we survey existing language development systems and give an outline of future language design assistants.Comment: To be presented at SSGRR 2000, L'Aquila, Ital