Melange: a Meta-language for

Modular and Reusable

Development of DSLsThomas Degueule, Benoit Combemale, Arnaud Blouin, Olivier Barais, Jean-Marc Jézéquel

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DSLs specificities

• Closely evolve with the domain• Extended, shrunk, customized, etc.• Quick prototyping, small development teams

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Software Language Engineering

• Breathing software engineering into languages

• In this talk: reuse, modularity• Goal: reduce engineering costs

• Instead of starting from scratch, can we reuse previously-defined language artifacts?

• But, is reuse relevant in a domain-specific context?

Crane et al., UML vs. classical vs. rhapsody statecharts: not all models are created equal, SoSyM, 2007

Reuse is not enough! Context matters!

Imported artifacts may not fit exactlydomain-specific requirements

Finely tune the imported artifacts and theresulting languages withcustomization facilities

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• A metamodel specifies the AS

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• A metamodel specifies the AS

• Sem consists of computation steps and runtime data

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• A metamodel specifies the AS

• Sem consists of computation steps and runtime data

• Aspect-oriented modeling: Semis woven as methods in the AS

• Based on static introduction

• Interpreter pattern

Jézéquel et al., Mashup of metalanguages

and its implementation in the kermeta

language workbench, SoSyM, 2013

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Inspired by eg. Erdweg et al., Language Composition Untangled, LDTA, 2012

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Steel et al., On Model Typing, SoSyM, 2007

Guy et al., On Model Subtyping, ECMFA, 2012

Running Example: a Simple State Machine Language in Melange

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A Language Workbench

▪ An open-source (EPL) language workbench

▪ or… a language-based, model-oriented language for DSL engineering

▪ An implementation of the algebra

▪ Supported by a model-oriented type sytem

▪ Based on Xtext

▪ Seamlessly integrated with the EMF ecosystem

▪ Bundled as a set of Eclipse plug-ins

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▪ Abstract syntax: Ecore (EMOF)

▪ Merging: Customized UML PackageMerge1

▪ Trading UML specificities with EMOF specificities

▪ Support for renaming

▪ Slicing: Kompren2

▪ Operational semantics: K3 (Xtend on steroids)

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Dingel et al., Understanding and Improving UML PackageMerge, SoSyM, 2008

Blouin et al., Kompren: Modeling and generating model slicers, SoSyM, 2012

1

2

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▪ Abstract syntax: Ecore (EMOF)

▪ Merging: Customized UML PackageMerge1

▪ Trading UML specificities with EMOF specificities

▪ Support for renaming

▪ Slicing: Kompren2

▪ Operational semantics: K3 (Xtend on steroids)

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Dingel et al., Understanding and Improving UML PackageMerge, SoSyM, 2008

Blouin et al., Kompren: Modeling and generating model slicers, SoSyM, 2012

1

2

Pointcut

Advice

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An Executable Modeling Language for the Internet of Things

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IDL

Modelsensors’

interfaces

Behavior

Modelsensors’

control flow

Actions

Expresssensors’ action

cf. fUML, ThingML, etc.

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IDL

Modelsensors’

interfaces

Behavior

Modelsensors’

control flow

Actions

Expresssensors’ actions

Ecore ActivityDiagram

FromEclipse

FromTTC’15

FromGithub

cf. fUML, ThingML, etc.

▪ Comparison with a top-down approach

▪ No runtime penalty

▪ Reuse and customization operators ease the development

▪ Glue: ~30 LoC (mainly Lua/AD context translation)

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▪ Viewpoints engineering

▪ Fine-grained modularity: language units / features / modules

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▪ Feel free to ask for a demonstration

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http://melange-lang.org