Tools for building grammar-driven programming environments

We represent a small group looking into tools for building generic
environments for little languages (application oriented
languages---AOLs). By "little languages" we mean special-purpose
languages with a small vocabulary (as opposed to full-scale
programming languages).


Our vision of an AOL programming environment of the future has the
following properties:


-) a set of generic tools for handling AOLs (the same tools for a whole
      class of AOLs)
-) the tools are controlled by formal language descriptions (grammars)
-) incrementality: tools will be interpreting the controlling grammars
      or use incremental grammar compilation
-) rapid prototyping and iterative language design should be possible
-) basically, the same environment can be used for designing the little
      language and for programming in it (meta-grammars control grammar
      editing)
-) programs can be synthesized (cf. Cornell Synthesizer) as well as
      entered the traditional way
-) graphical languages will have to be considered eventually,
      but finding appropriate tools for handling purely textual programming
      languages is the first step.


We are interested in commercial products as well as research projects,
papers and other material and would be happy to get in touch with
people interested in this area.


Bo Johansson (bo@abblund.se)
Robert Storlind (robert@abblund.se)
ASEA BROWN BOVERI, Corporate Research dept KLL
IDEON Research Park, SWEDEN
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