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Measuring the complexity of domain-specific languages developed using MDD

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Abstract

The standard ISO/IEC 25010 (SQuaRE) defines appropriateness as one of the three components of functional suitability, the other two components being completeness and correctness. As users of domain-specific language (DSL) are quite often domain experts with limited programming skills, a DSL might be considered appropriate if the resulting domain-specific programs do not contain an excessive amount of nondomain-related programming elements. This paper describes a metric for measuring the appropriateness of DSLs that are developed using model-driven development (MDD), its evaluation and use. The metric measures the depth of the deepest domain-specific command within abstract syntax trees generated by a DSL. It is aimed at being used during the development of a new DSL and for comparing different DSLs defined over the same domain. It is assumed that during MDD, the metamodel describes the domain-independent part of the DSL, while the model supplies the domain-specific part. This resembles the implementation of DSLs using existing metaprogramming tools that provide off-the-shelf implementations of programming constructs but require manual implementation of the domain-specific language elements.

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Notes

  1. chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Forsyth-Edwards+Notation

  2. www.saremba.de/chessgml/standards/pgn/pgn-complete.htm

  3. www.fim.uni-passau.de/fileadmin/files/lehrstuhl/brandenburg/projekte/gml/gml-technical-report

  4. http://www.graphviz.org/content/dot-language

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  1. Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana, Večna pot 113, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Boštjan Slivnik

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Slivnik, B. Measuring the complexity of domain-specific languages developed using MDD. Software Qual J 24, 737–753 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-015-9279-1

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