Domain-Specific Languages

Dijkstra once wrote that computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. Despite the many incredible advances in c- puter science from times that predate practical mechanical computing, there is still a myriad of fundamental questions in understanding the interface between computers and the rest of the world. Why is it still hard to mechanize many tasks that seem to be fundamentally routine, even as we see ever-increasing - pacity for raw mechanical computing? The disciplined study of domain-speci?c languages (DSLs) is an emerging area in computer science, and is one which has the potential to revolutionize the ?eld, and bring us closer to answering this question. DSLs are formalisms that have four general characteristics. - They relate to a well-de?ned domain of discourse, be it controlling tra?c lights or space ships. - They have well-de?ned notation, such as the ones that exist for prescribing music, dance routines, or strategy in a football game. - The informal or intuitive meaning of the notation is clear. This can easily be overlooked, especially since intuitive meaning can be expressed by many di?erent notations that may be received very di?erently by users. - The formal meaning is clear and mechanizable, as is, hopefully, the case for the instructions we give to our bank or to a merchant online.

Semantics.- J Is for JavaScript: A Direct-Style Correspondence between Algol-Like Languages and JavaScript Using First-Class Continuations.- Model-Driven Engineering from Modular Monadic Semantics: Implementation Techniques Targeting Hardware and Software.- Methods and Tools.- A MuDDy Experience-ML Bindings to a BDD Library.- Gel: A Generic Extensible Language.- A Taxonomy-Driven Approach to Visually Prototyping Pervasive Computing Applications.- LEESA: Embedding Strategic and XPath-Like Object Structure Traversals in C++.- Unit Testing for Domain-Specific Languages.- Combining DSLs and Ontologies Using Metamodel Integration.- Case Studies.- A Domain Specific Language for Composable Memory Transactions in Java.- CLOPS: A DSL for Command Line Options.- Nettle: A Language for Configuring Routing Networks.- Generic Libraries in C++ with Concepts from High-Level Domain Descriptions in Haskell.- Domain-Specific Language for HW/SW Co-design for FPGAs.- A Haskell Hosted DSL for Writing Transformation Systems.- Varying Domain Representations in Hagl.- A DSL for Explaining Probabilistic Reasoning.- Embedded Probabilistic Programming.- Operator Language: A Program Generation Framework for Fast Kernels.