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Comparing Language Workbenches 2012: assignment published

November 25, 2011 16:42:34 +0200 (EET)

The assignment for Language Workbench Challenge 2012 has been published. The assignment aims to support demonstrating the capabilities of various language workbenches, also known as DSL tools, DSM tools, metaCASE tool, metamodeling tools, metasystems and now lately as language workbenches.

I found the assignment for 2012 particularly interesting as it requires integration of various domain-specific languages, and support for rich notations. While experimenting today the latest beta of coming MetaEdit+ 5.0, I’ve implemented one of the languages, namely Piping and Instrumentation Language (see below). The actual language does not look particularly fancy, but on the other hand the whole purpose of domain-specific languages is to support notations that are already familiar and known to work.

Piping and Instrumentation Diagram supported in MetaEdit+

The implemented language (and editor in MetaEdit+) covers the concepts given in the assignment, visualize the pipes and instruments as people expect, as well as ensures the correctness of the design via the rules set in the metamodel or in model checking reports. The assignment seems to be promising also some late updates and it is then interesting to see how the various tools handle language and related model evolution.