Comments on James Clark's Random Thoughts: MGrammar

You might be interested to check my ETL framework....

2009-01-19T21:50:00.000+07:00

You might be interested to check my ETL framework. I'm still working on web site, but documentation is available as a part of distributive. I have just released the version 0.2.1.

Just download http://downloads.sourceforge.net/etl/etl-java-0_2_1-xmlout.zip
and open etl-java-0_2_1\doc\readme.html inside it. There is a tutorial that could help to get language basics.

This language definition mechanism is designed to allow grammar reuse but at the cost of universality. And it also defines passive grammars. It is designed to be orthogonal to metamodel issue. It is easy to establish mapping to existing metamodels. From what have been actually implemented: JavaBeans, EMF, and simple model that uses reflection over classes and fields.

"I definitely don't want every application to be u...

2008-12-05T22:12:00.000+07:00

"I definitely don't want every application to be using its own completely custom syntax"

You already have to do this to some degree. When you start working for a new company or a new department in your current company you have to wade through it's terminology how all that's cooked into the code. Also when you bring in a 3rd party API. Or even when you create an API for other developers to use.

Hopefully the MGrammers would reduce noise and make it easier for us to learn and use the APIs.

MGrammar in some ways is the most immediately usef...

2008-11-25T11:50:00.000+07:00

MGrammar in some ways is the most immediately useful part of Oslo. There's no reason you need to write a new DSL to use it. In fact, writing MGrammar descriptions of formats you already use can be a very big win.

I see using Oslo DSLs more for business rules and other algorithmic/declarative information that doesn't really have a lot of interoperability implications. It's not targeted at data communication per se. (Though it's no slouch at expressing protocols, if you want to use it for that.)

DAG Directed Acyclic GraphDSL Domain Specific ...

2008-11-24T17:42:00.000+07:00

DAG Directed Acyclic Graph
DSL Domain Specific Language.

"I definitely don't want every application to be u...

2008-11-23T21:39:00.000+07:00

"I definitely don't want every application to be using its own completely custom syntax"

I don't think you'll need to worry about having to deal with lots of DSLs. My impression is that Microsoft is targeting in-house business applications and developers. I think there's a lot of scope for using DSLs for describing business rules in a form that is understandable by non-programmers in the business.