Streamlining the Development of Hybrid Graphical-Textual Model Editors for Domain-Specific Languages

TY - JOUR

T1 - Streamlining the Development of Hybrid Graphical-Textual Model Editors for Domain-Specific Languages

AU - Predoaia, Ionut

AU - Kolovos, Dimitris

AU - Lenk, Matthias

AU - García-Domínguez, Antonio

N1 - Ionut Predoaia is a PhD candidate and Research Associate in the Department of Computer Science at the University of York. He is also an R&D Software Engineer at NetApp, where he focuses on the development of model editors for system management and infrastructure automation. His current research revolves around model-based software engineering, domain-specific languages, model editors and infrastructure as code. You can contact the author at [email protected]. Dimitris Kolovos is a Professor of Software Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at the University of York, where he researches and teaches automated and model-driven software engineering. He is also an Eclipse Foundation committer, leading the development of the open-source Epsilon model-driven software engineering platform, and an editor of the Software and Systems Modelling journal. He has co-authored more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and his research has been supported by the European Commission, UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), InnovateUK and by companies such as Rolls-Royce and IBM. You can contact the author at [email protected]. Matthias Lenk held the role of a Global Technology Strategist at NetApp, where he focused on cloud and data services for the automotive industry. His academic background is within model-driven software development and model transformations in the domain of VR/AR. You can contact the author at [email protected]. Antonio García-Domínguez is a Lecturer at the Department of Computer Science of the University of York. Antonio's main research interest is model-driven software engineering, with lines of work on scalable model management and runtime models for explainability of self-adaptive systems. In addition to over 60 publications across international conferences, journals, and book chapters, Antonio is a core contributor to the Eclipse Epsilon model management languages and tools, and leads the Eclipse Hawk model indexing project. You can contact the author at [email protected].

PY - 2023/7/1

Y1 - 2023/7/1

N2 - A domain-specific language (DSL) can have multiple syntaxes, that can be graphical or textual. When modelling the behaviour, complex expressions, and fine details of a domain, often it does not make sense to use a graphical syntax, as this can result in large, crowded diagrams, therefore in such cases, a textual syntax is often more appropriate. As such, the best of both worlds can be delivered by a DSL that has hybrid (part-graphical and part-textual) syntaxes. In this work, we address open challenges and apply model-driven engineering techniques to streamline the development of hybrid graphical-textual model editors for DSLs, by using as little hand-written code as possible.

AB - A domain-specific language (DSL) can have multiple syntaxes, that can be graphical or textual. When modelling the behaviour, complex expressions, and fine details of a domain, often it does not make sense to use a graphical syntax, as this can result in large, crowded diagrams, therefore in such cases, a textual syntax is often more appropriate. As such, the best of both worlds can be delivered by a DSL that has hybrid (part-graphical and part-textual) syntaxes. In this work, we address open challenges and apply model-driven engineering techniques to streamline the development of hybrid graphical-textual model editors for DSLs, by using as little hand-written code as possible.

KW - Code Generation

KW - Domain-Specific Language

KW - EMF

KW - Graphical-Textual Modelling

KW - Language Engineering

KW - Model Editor

KW - Sirius

KW - Xtext

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85166907248&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.5381/jot.2023.22.2.a8

DO - 10.5381/jot.2023.22.2.a8

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85166907248

SN - 1660-1769

VL - 22

JO - Journal of Object Technology

JF - Journal of Object Technology

IS - 2

T2 - 19th European Conference on Modelling Foundations and Applications

Y2 - 20 July 2023 through 21 July 2023

ER -