Language-oriented programming (LOP)
is a software-development paradigm where "language" is a software building block with the same status as objects, modules and components,
and rather than solving problems in
general-purpose programming languages, the programmer creates one or more
domain-specific language
A domain-specific language (DSL) is a computer language specialized to a particular application domain. This is in contrast to a general-purpose language (GPL), which is broadly applicable across domains. There are a wide variety of DSLs, ranging f ...
s (DSLs) for the problem first, and solves the problem in those languages. Language-oriented programming was first described in detail in Martin Ward's 1994 paper ''Language Oriented Programming'',
published in ''Software - Concepts and Tools'', Vol.15, No.4, pp 147–161, 1994.
Concept
The concept of language-oriented programming takes the approach to capture requirements in the user's terms, and then to try to create an implementation language as
isomorphic
In mathematics, an isomorphism is a structure-preserving mapping between two structures of the same type that can be reversed by an inverse mapping. Two mathematical structures are isomorphic if an isomorphism exists between them. The word is ...
as possible to the user's descriptions, so that the mapping between requirements and implementation is as direct as possible. A measure of the closeness of this isomorphism is the "redundancy" of the language, defined as the number of editing operations needed to implement a stand-alone change in requirements. It is not assumed ''a-priori'' what is the best language for implementing the new language. Rather, the developer can choose among options created by analysis of the information flows — what information is acquired, what its structure is, when it is acquired, from whom, and what is done with it.
Development
The
Racket programming language is designed to support language-oriented programming.
Other
language workbench tools such as
JetBrains MPS,
Kermeta, or
Xtext
Xtext is an open-source software framework for developing programming languages and domain-specific languages (DSLs). Unlike standard parser generators, Xtext generates not only a parser, but also a class model for the abstract syntax tree, as ...
provide the tools to design and implement DSLs and language-oriented programming
See also
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Grammar-oriented programming
{{Programming paradigms
Grammar-oriented programming (GOP) and Grammar-oriented Object Design (GOOD) are good for designing and creating a domain-specific programming language (DSL) for a specific business domain.
GOOD can be used to drive th ...
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Dialecting
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language.
The description of a programming la ...
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Domain-specific language
A domain-specific language (DSL) is a computer language specialized to a particular application domain. This is in contrast to a general-purpose language (GPL), which is broadly applicable across domains. There are a wide variety of DSLs, ranging f ...
*
Extensible programming
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Intentional programming
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Homoiconicity
References
{{Reflist
External links
Language Oriented Programming: The Next Programming ParadigmSergey Dmitriev's paper that further explored the topic.
Language Oriented Programming in MetaLisp Gyuri Lajos'
thesis 1992 University of LeedsThe system used the very same Top Down Parsing Language algorithm that powered
Tree-Meta
Programming paradigms