A language workbench is a tool or set of tools that enables software development in the

language-oriented programming 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, ...

software development paradigm. A language workbench will typically include tools to support the definition, reuse and composition of domain-specific languages together with their

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools ...

. Language workbenches were introduced and popularized by Martin Fowler in 2005. Language workbenches usually support: * Specification of the language concepts or

metamodel A metamodel or surrogate model is a model of a model, and metamodeling is the process of generating such metamodels. Thus metamodeling or meta-modeling is the analysis, construction and development of the frames, rules, constraints, models and ...

* Specification of the editing environments for the domain-specific language * Specification of the execution semantics, e.g. through interpretation and code generation

Examples

* Racket is a cross-platform language development workbench including compiler, JIT compiler, IDE and command-line tools designed to accommodate creating both domain-specific languages and completely new languages with facilities to add new notation, constrain constructs, and create IDE tools. *

JetBrains MPS JetBrains MPS (Meta Programming System) is a language workbench developed by JetBrains. MPS is a tool to design domain-specific languages (DSL). It uses projectional editing which allows users to overcome the limits of language parsers, and buil ...

is a tool for designing domain-specific languages. It uses projectional editing which allows overcoming the limits of language parsers, and building DSL editors, such as ones with tables and diagrams. It implements language-oriented programming. MPS combines an environment for language definition, a language workbench, and an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for such languages. *

Kermeta Kermeta is a modeling and programming language for Metamodeling, metamodel engineering. History The Kermeta language was initiated by Franck Fleurey in 2005 within thTriskellteam of IRISA (gathering researchers of the INRIA, CNRS, Institut nationa ...

is an open-source academic language workbench. The Kermeta workbench uses three different meta-languages: one meta-language for the abstract syntax (aligned with Emof); one for the static semantics (aligned with OCL) and one for the behavioral semantics (called the Kermeta Language itself). * Melange is a language workbench that provides a modular approach for customizing, assembling and integrating multiple domain-specific language (DSL) specifications and implementations. * Spoofax. is an open-source language workbench for generating parsers, type checkers, compilers, interpreters, as well as IDE plugins for Eclipse and

IntelliJ IntelliJ IDEA is an integrated development environment (IDE) written in Java for developing computer software written in Java, Kotlin, Groovy, and other JVM-based languages. It is developed by JetBrains (formerly known as IntelliJ) and is ava ...

. It uses SDF and a scannerless

GLR parser A GLR parser (GLR standing for "Generalized LR", where L stands for "left-to-right" and R stands for "rightmost (derivation)") is an extension of an LR parser algorithm to handle non-deterministic and ambiguous grammars. The theoretical foundat ...

for syntax, and formalisms derived from Stratego/XT for semantics. *

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 ...

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. In addition, it provides a fully featured, customizable Eclipse-based IDE. * Meeduse is an EMF-based framework that allows one to build, prove and animate executable domain-specific languages (xDSLs) using the B Method. The tool embeds ProB, and animator and model-checker of the B Method.

References

External links

* Martin Fowler
Language Workbench

Language Workbench Challenge
2005 introductions Software development {{compu-stub

Examples

See also

References

External links