ADomain-specificLanguageForGeneratingRichInternetApplications
Stc
Date: 2008-06-19
Time: 12:00
Room: BBL room 471
Speaker: Armand Gelissen
Title: A domain-specific language for generating Rich Internet Applications
Abstract
Since several years there has been a trend towards the use of Service
Oriented Architectures (SOAs) in enterprise environments. Because of this
trend and, more recently, the maturing of frameworks for Rich Internet
Applications (RIAs), there is an increasing interest in the usage of RIAs to
access the services in a SOA environment. As a result, programming tools have
become available that can shorten the development time of the aforementioned
type of applications.
One of these tools is Visual Composer (VC), a modeling tool designed for use
in combination with SAP's software products. Within the unit SAP AD&T of Atos
Origin, this tool is successfully in use to model about 80% of the interfaces
developed for its customers. However, VC has several limitations that cannot
be overcome due to its closed nature and the lack of viable alternatives for
the niche targeted by this product.
We therefore present a domain-specific language (DSL) for generating RIAs that
addresses the shortcomings of VC. Highlights from the design of this DSL
include the usage of two sublanguages, which together allow the concise
description of RIAs in the targeted domain, the extensibility of the language,
the exclusive usage of the Web Service Description Language to access the
server side of a client-sever architecture, and the focus on generating code
that can be used as a building block for a larger application.
