Spoofax: An Extensible, Interactive Development Environment for Program Transformation with Stratego/XT

Preprint accepted for publication in: SeventhWorkshop on Language Descriptions, Tools, and Applications (LDTA’07), pages 47–50, Braga, Portugal, March 2007.Software TechnologyElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Fusing a Transformation Language with an Open Compiler

Program transformation systems provide powerful analysis and transformation frameworks as well as concise languages for language processing, but instantiating them for every subject language is an arduous task, most often resulting in halfcompleted frontends. Compilers provide mature frontends with robust parsers and type checkers, but solving language processing problems in general-purpose languages without transformation libraries is tedious. Reusing these frontends with existing transformation systems is therefore attractive. However, for this reuse to be optimal, the functional logic found in the frontend should be exposed to the transformation system – simple data serialization of the abstract syntax tree is not enough, since this fails to expose important compiler functionality, such as import graphs, symbol tables and the type checker. In this paper, we introduce a novel and general technique for combining term-based transformation systems with existing language frontends. The technique is presented in the context of a scriptable analysis and transformation framework for Java built on top of the Eclipse Java compiler. The framework consists of an adapter automatically extracted from the abstract syntax tree of the compiler and an interpreter for the Stratego program transformation language. The adapter allows the Stratego interpreter to rewrite directly on the compiler AST. We illustrate the applicability of our system with scripts written in Stratego that perform framework and library-specific analyses and transformations. This paper is a pre-print of: K. T. Kalleberg and E. Visser. Fusing a Transformation Language with an Open Compiler. In A. Sloane and A. Johnstone, editors, Seventh Workshop on Language Descriptions, Tools, and Applications (LDTA’07), pages 18–31, Braga, Portugal, March 2007.Software TechnologyElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Interactive disambiguation of meta programs with concrete object syntax

In meta-programming with concrete object syntax, meta programs can be written using the concrete syntax of manipulated programs. Quotations of concrete syntax fragments and anti-quotations for meta-level expressions and variables are used to manipulate the abstract representation of programs. These small, isolated fragments are often ambiguous and must be explicitly disambiguated with quotation tags or types, using names from the non-terminals of the object language syntax. Discoverability of these names has been an open issue, as they depend on the (grammar) implementation and are not part of the concrete syntax of a language. Based on advances in interactive development environments, we introduce interactive disambiguation to address this issue, providing real-time feedback and proposing quick fixes in case of ambiguities This paper is a pre-print of: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference of Software Language Engineering (SLE 2010), Eindhoven (The Netherlands) 12-13 Oct. 2010, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer, 2010Software TechnologyElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Generating Editors for Embedded Languages: Integrating SGLR into IMP

Preprint of paper published in: LDTA 2008: 8th Workshop on Language Descriptions, Tools and Applications, 5 April 2008 Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) increase productivity by providing a rich user interface and rapid feedback for a specific language. Creating an editor for a specific language is not a trivial undertaking, and is a cumbersome task even when working with an extensible framework such as Eclipse. A new IBMguided effort, the IMP framework, relieves the IDE developer from a significant portion of the required work by providing various abstractions for this. For embedded languages, such as embedded regular expressions, SQL queries, or code generation templates, its LALR parser generator falls short, however. Scannerless parsing with SGLR enables concise, modular definition of such languages. In this paper, we present an integration of SGLR into IMP, demonstrating that a scannerless parser can be successfully integrated into an IDE. Given an SDF syntax definition, the sdf2imp tool automatically generates an editor plugin based on the IMP API, complete with syntax checking, syntax highlighting, outline view, and code folding. Using declarative domain-specific languages, these services can be customized, and using the IMP metatooling framework it can be extended with other features.Software Computer TechnologyElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Domain-Specific Languages for Composable Editor Plugins

Modern IDEs increase developer productivity by incorporating many different kinds of editor services. These can be purely syntactic, such as syntax highlighting, code folding, and an outline for navigation; or they can be based on the language semantics, such as in-line type error reporting and resolving identifier declarations. Building all these services from scratch requires both the extensive knowledge of the sometimes complicated and highly interdependent APIs and extension mechanisms of an IDE framework, and an in-depth understanding of the structure and semantics of the targeted language. This paper describes Spoofax/IMP, a meta-tooling suite that provides high-level domain-specific languages for describing editor services, relieving editor developers from much of the framework-specific programming. Editor services are defined as composable modules of rules coupled to a modular SDF grammar. The composability provided by the SGLR parser and the declaratively defined services allows embedded languages and language extensions to be easily formulated as additional rules extending an existing language definition. The service definitions are used to generate Eclipse editor plugins. We discuss two examples: an editor plugin for WebDSL, a domain-specific language for web applications, and the embedding of WebDSL in Stratego, used for expressing the (static) semantic rules of WebDSL.Software Computer TechnologyElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Stratego/XT 0.17. A Language and Toolset for Program Transformation

Preprint of paper published in: Science of Computer Programming (Elsevier), 72 (1-2), 2008; doi:10.1016/j.scico.2007.11.003 Stratego/XT is a language and toolset for program transformation. The Stratego language provides rewrite rules for expressing basic transformations, programmable rewriting strategies for controlling the application of rules, concrete syntax for expressing the patterns of rules in the syntax of the object language, and dynamic rewrite rules for expressing context-sensitive transformations, thus supporting the development of transformation components at a high level of abstraction. The XT toolset offers a collection of flexible, reusable transformation components, and tools for generating such components from declarative specifications. Complete program transformation systems are composed from these components. This paper gives an overview of Stratego/XT 0.17, including a description of the Stratego language and XT transformation tools; a discussion of the implementation techniques and software engineering process; and a description of applications built with Stratego/XT.Software Computer TechnologyElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Software Development Environments on the Web: A Research Agenda

Preprint of paper published in: Onward! 2012 - Proceedings of the 11th SIGPLAN symposium on New ideas, new paradigms, and reflections on programming and software, 19-26 October 2012; 10.1145/2384592.2384603 Software is rapidly moving from the desktop to theWeb. The Web provides a generic user interface that allows ubiquitous access, instant collaboration, integration with other online services, and avoids installation and configuration on desktop computers. For software development, the Web presents a shift away from developer workstations as a silo, and has the promise of closer collaboration and improved feedback through innovations in Web-based interactive development environments (IDEs). Moving IDEs to the Web is not just a matter of “porting” desktop IDEs; a fundamental reconsideration of the IDE architecture is necessary in order to realize the full potential that the combination of modern IDEs and the Web can offer. This paper discusses research challenges and opportunities in this area, guided by a pilot study of a web IDE implementation.Software Computer TechnologyElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

The Second Rewrite Engines Competition

The Second Rewrite Engines Competition (REC) was celebrated as part of the 7th Workshop on Rewriting Logic and its Applications (WRLA 2008). In this edition of the competition participated five systems, namely ASF+SDF, Maude, Stratego/XT, TermWare, and Tom. We explain here how the competition was organized and conducted, and present its main results and conclusions

Term rewriting meets aspect-oriented programming

Term rewriting is in the intersection of our interests and physical distance has never been large. Nonetheless we seem to be living at opposite ends of the term rewriting galaxy. Here is a story from the other side of that galaxy. Abstract. We explore the connection between term rewriting systems (TRS) and aspect-oriented programming (AOP). Term rewriting is a paradigm that is used in fields such as program transformation and theorem proving. AOP is a method for decomposing software, complementary to the usual separation into programs, classes, functions, etc. An aspect represents code that is scattered across the components of an otherwise orderly decomposed system. Using AOP, such code can be modularized into aspects and then automatically weaved into a system. Aspect weavers are available for only a handful of languages. Term rewriting can offer a method for the rapid prototyping of weavers for more languages. We explore this claim by presenting a simple weaver implemented as a TRS. We also observe that TRS can benefit from AOP. For example, their flexibility can be enhanced by factoring out hardwired code for tracing and logging rewrite rules. We explore methods for enhancing TRS with aspects and present one application: automatically connecting an interactive debugger to a language specification