Comparing general-purpose and domain-specific languages: an empirical study

Many domain-specific languages, that try to bring feasible alternatives for existing solutions while simplifying programming work, have come up in recent years. Although, these little languages seem to be easy to use, there is an open issue whether they bring advantages in comparison to the application libraries, which are the most commonly used implementation approach. In this work, we present an experiment, which was carried out to compare such a domain-specific language with a comparable application library. The experiment was conducted with 36 programmers, who have answered a questionnaire on both implementation approaches. The questionnaire is more than 100 pages long. For a domain-specific language and the application library, the same problem domain has been used – construction of graphical user interfaces. In terms of a domain-specific language, XAML has been used and C# Forms for the application library. A cognitive dimension framework has been used for a comparison between XAML and C# Forms

Comparison of XAML and C# frorms using cognitive dimensions framework

Many domain-specific languages arise in the past years, trying to bring feasible alternatives for existing solutions with purpose to simplify programmers work. Although these little languages seem to be easier to use, there is an open issue whether they bring advantages comparing to most commonly used implementation approach, application libraries. In this work we present an experiment, carried out to compare such domain-specific language with comparable application library. The experiment was conducted with 36 programmers, which were answering questions on more than 100 long pages on both implementation approaches. For domain-specific language and application library the same problem domain has been used { construction of graphical user interfaces. In terms of domain-specific language, XAML has been used and C# Forms for application library. For comparison of XAML and C# Forms cognitive dimension framework has been used.Bilateral project - GRICE

Tool-supported building of DSLs from OWL ontologies

Domain-specific languages (DSLs) are computer languages intended for problem solving in a specific domain. Ontology is a formal representation of a set of concepts from a particular domain and the relations between them. An ontology may be used to describe a domain and to reason about the entities within the domain. This paper presents an Ontology2DSL framework to build DSLs from OWL ontologies. Ontology2DSL enables the semi-automated construction of a formal grammar and programs from an OWL ontology. The design approach, the functionalities of the framework, and a case study are also addressed in this paper. Special attention is paid to the architecture that encompasses the following components: the transformation pattern builder, the OWL parser, the rule reader, the rule execution component and the transaction logger

On automata and language based grammar metrics

International audienceGrammar metrics have been introduced to measure the quality and the complexity of the formal grammars. The aim of this paper is to explore the meaning of these notions and to experiment, on several grammars of domain specific languages and of general-purpose languages, existing grammar metrics together with the new metrics that are based on grammar LR automaton and on the language recognized. We discuss the results of this experiment and focus on the comparison between grammars of domain specific languages as well as of general-purpose languages and on the evolution of the metrics between several versions of the same language

Influence of domain-specific notation to program understanding

Application libraries are the most commonly used implementation approach to solve problems in general-purpose languages. Their competitors are domain-specific languages, which can provide notation close to the problem domain. We carried out an empirical study on comparing domain-specific languages and application libraries regarding program understanding. In this paper, one case study is presented. Over 3000 lines of code were studied and more than 86 pages long questionnaires were answered by end-users, answering questions on learning, perceiving and evolving programs written in domain-specific language as well as general-purpose language using application library. In this paper, we present comparison results on end-users' correctness and consumed time. For domain-specific language and application library same problem domain has been used-a well-known open source graph description language,(undefined

Applying program comprehension techniques to karel robot programs

In the context of program understanding, a challenge research topic 1 is to learn how techniques and tools for the comprehension of General-Purpose Languages (GPLs) can be used or adjusted to the understanding of Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs). Being DSLs tailored for the description of problems within a specific domain, it becomes easier to improve these tools with specific visualizations (at a higher abstraction level, closer to the problem level) in order to understand the DSLs programs. In this paper, comprehension techniques will be applied to Karel language. This will allow us to explore the creation of problem domain visualizations for this language and to combine both problem and program domains in order to reach a full understanding of Karel programs.(undefined