1,618
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
1 collections
    0
    shares

      Studying business & IT? Drive your professional career forwards with BCS books - for a 20% discount click here: shop.bcs.org

      scite_
       
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Conference Proceedings: found
      Is Open Access

      Component-Based Description of Programming Languages

      Published
      proceedings-article
      Visions of Computer Science - BCS International Academic Conference (VOCS)
      BCS International Academic Conference
      22 - 24 September 2008
      Programming languages, Formal methods, Syntax, Semantics, Modularity, Reuse
      Bookmark

            Abstract

            Research in formal description of programming languages over the past four decades has led to some significant achievements. These include formal syntax and semantics for complete major programming languages, and theoretical foundations for novel features that might be included in future languages. Nevertheless, to give a completely formal, validated description of any significant programming language using the conventional frameworks remains an immense effort, disproportionate to its perceived benefits. Our diagnosis of the causes of this disappointing situation highlights two major deficiencies in the pragmatic aspects of formal language descriptions in conventional frameworks: lack of reusable components, and poor tool support. Part of the proposed remedy is a radical shift to a novel component-based paradigm for the development of complete language descriptions, based on simple interfaces between descriptions of syntactic and semantic aspects, and employing frameworks that allow independent description of individual programming constructs. The introduction of a language-independent notation for common programming constructs maximises the reusability of components. Tool support for component-based language description is being developed using the ASF+SDF Meta- Environment; the aim is to provide an efficient component-based workbench for use in design and implementation of future programming languages, accompanied by an online repository for validated formal descriptions of programming constructs and languages.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Contributors
            Conference
            September 2008
            September 2008
            : 275-286
            Affiliations
            [0001]Department of Computer Science, Swansea University

            Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP, United Kingdom
            Article
            10.14236/ewic/VOCS2008.23
            6adb9980-0113-45d8-852e-c52a45646a06
            © Peter D. Mosses et al. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. Visions of Computer Science - BCS International Academic Conference

            This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

            Visions of Computer Science - BCS International Academic Conference
            VOCS
            Imperial College, London, UK
            22 - 24 September 2008
            Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)
            BCS International Academic Conference
            History
            Product

            1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

            Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/VOCS2008.23
            Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/
            Categories
            Electronic Workshops in Computing

            Applied computer science,Computer science,Security & Cryptology,Graphics & Multimedia design,General computer science,Human-computer-interaction
            Programming languages,Formal methods,Syntax,Semantics,Modularity,Reuse

            Comments

            Comment on this article