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When carefully selected and used, Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) may simplify complex code, promote effective communication with customers, improve productivity, and unclog development bottlenecks. In Domain-Specific Languages, noted software development expert Martin Fowler first provides the information software professionals need to decide if and when to utilize DSLs. Then, where DSLs prove suitable, Fowler presents effective techniques for building them, and guides software engineers in choosing the right approaches for their applications.

This book’s techniques may be utilized with most modern object-oriented languages; the author provides numerous examples in Java and C#, as well as selected examples in Ruby. Wherever possible, chapters are organized to be self-standing, and most reference topics are presented in a familiar patterns format.

Armed with this wide-ranging book, developers will have the knowledge they need to make important decisions about DSLs—and, where appropriate, gain the significant technical and business benefits they offer.

The topics covered include:

- How DSLs compare to frameworks and libraries, and when those alternatives are sufficient

- Using parsers and parser generators, and parsing external DSLs

- Understanding, comparing, and choosing DSL language constructs

- Determining whether to use code generation, and comparing code generation strategies

- Previewing new language workbench tools for creating DSLs

Designed as a wide-ranging guide to Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) and how to approach building them, this book covers a variety of different techniques available for DSLs. The goal is to provide readers with enough information to make an informed choice about whether or not to use a DSL and what kinds of DSL techniques to employ.

Part I is a 150-page narrative overview that gives you a broad understanding of general principles. The reference material in Parts II through VI provides the details and examples you will need to get started using the various techniques discussed. Both internal and external DSL topics are covered, in addition to alternative computational models and code generation. Although the general principles and patterns presented can be used with whatever programming language you happen to be using, most of the examples are in Java or C#.

It's a very interesting book: clear, pragmatic and insightful; with some little pearls of funny comments that make it more pleasant to read.

Martin Fowler is Chief Scientist at ThoughtWorks. He describes himself as “an author, speaker, consultant, and general loudmouth on software development. I concentrate on designing enterprise software—looking at what makes a good design and what practices are needed to come up with good design.” Fowler’s books include Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture; UML Distilled, Third Edition; and (with Kent Beck, John Brant, and William Opdyke) Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code. All are published by Addison-Wesley.

Preface xix

Part I: Narratives 1

Chapter 1: An Introductory Example 3

Gothic Security 3

The State Machine Model 5

Programming Miss Grant’s Controller 9

Languages and Semantic Model 16

Using Code Generation 19

Using Language Workbenches 22

Visualization 24

Chapter 2: Using Domain-Specific Languages 27

Defining Domain-Specific Languages 27

Why Use a DSL? 33

Problems with DSLs 36

Wider Language Processing 39

DSL Lifecycle 40

What Makes a Good DSL Design? 42

Chapter 3: Implementing DSLs 43

Architecture of DSL Processing 43

The Workings of a Parser 47

Grammars, Syntax, and Semantics 49

Parsing Data 50

Macros 52

Chapter 4: Implementing an Internal DSL 67

Fluent and Command-Query APIs 68

The Need for a Parsing Layer 71

Using Functions 72

Literal Collections 77

Using Grammars to Choose Internal Elements 79

Closures 80

Parse Tree Manipulation 82

Annotation 84

Literal Extension 85

Reducing the Syntactic Noise 85

Dynamic Reception 86

Providing Some Type Checking 87

Chapter 5: Implementing an External DSL 89

Syntactic Analysis Strategy 89

Output Production Strategy 92

Parsing Concepts 94

Mixing-in Another Language 100

XML DSLs 101

Chapter 6: Choosing between Internal and External DSLs 105

Learning Curve 105

Cost of Building 106

Programmer Familiarity 107

Communication with Domain Experts 108

Mixing In the Host Language 108

Strong Expressiveness Boundary 109

Runtime Configuration 110

Sliding into Generality 110

Composing DSLs 111

Summing Up 111

Chapter 7: Alternative Computational Models 113

A Few Alternative Models 116

Chapter 8: Code Generation 121

Choosing What to Generate 122

How to Generate 124

Mixing Generated and Handwritten Code 126

Generating Readable Code 127

Preparse Code Generation 128

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Domain-Specific Languages

Domain-Specific Languages

0321712943

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

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