Building User Friendly DSLs

Craft domain-specific languages that empower experts to create software themselves. Domain-specific languages put business experts at the heart of software development. These purpose-built tools let your clients write down their business knowledge and have it automatically translated into working software—no dev time required. They seamlessly bridge the knowledge gap between programmers and subject experts, enabling better communication and freeing you from time-consuming code adjustments. Inside Building User-Friendly DSLs you’ll learn how to: • Build a complete Domain IDE for a car rental company • Implement a projectional editor for your DSL • Implement content assist, type systems, expressions, and versioning language aspects • Evaluate business rules • Work with Abstract Syntax Trees • Reduce notated DSL content in concrete syntax into abstract syntax Building User-Friendly DSLs takes you on a carefully-planned journey through everything you need to create your own DSLs. It focuses on building DSLs that are easy for busy business experts to learn and master. By working through a detailed example of a car rental company, you'll see how to create a custom DSL with a modern and intuitive UI that can replace tedious coding activities. About the technology Here’s the central problem of software development: business users know what they need their apps to do, but they don’t know how to write the code themselves. As a developer, this means you spend a lot of time learning the same domain-specific details your user already knows. Now there’s a way to bridge this gap! You can create a Domain-Specific Language (DSL) that empowers non-technical business users to create and customize their own applications without writing any code. About the book Building User-Friendly DSLs teaches you how to create a complete domain-specific language that looks and works like a web application. These easy-to-use DSLs put the power to create custom software into the hands of business domain experts. As you go, you’ll cover all the essentials, from establishing structure and syntax of your DSL to implementing a user-friendly interface. What's inside • Implement a projectional editor for your DSL • Work with Abstract Syntax Trees • Evaluate business rules About the reader For developers with JavaScript and web development experience. About the author Meinte Boersma is a senior developer and an evangelist of model-driven software development and DSLs. Table of Contents 1 What is a domain-specific language? 2 Representing DSL content as structured data 3 Working with ASTs in code 4 Projecting the AST 5 Editing values in the projection 6 Editing objects in the projection 7 Implementing persistence and transportation of ASTs 8 Generating code from the AST 9 Preventing things from blowing up 10 Managing change 11 Implementing expressions: Binary operations 12 Implementing expressions: Order of operations 13 Implementing a type system 14 Implementing business rules 15 Some topics we didn’t cover

Domain-Specific Languages Made Easy shows you how to design and build modern DSLs for business users. Drawing on years of industry experience, author Meinte Boersma lays out an iterative process for creating languages accessible todomain experts such as operations specialists, data analysts, and financialexperts. You'll start with an overview of software language engineering before diving into the unique projectional editing paradigm that makes it easy to produce DSLs for business. There are no special tools or proprietary software required—you'll work with an open source JavaScript stack that ensures the techniques you learn are easy to port between projects. Imagine if your non-technical clients could safely produce software without the need for anyone to manually write code. Domain-specific languages are purpose-built programming interfaces that make that possible—no programming experience required. Written for developers who need to create user-facing DSLs, Domain- SpecificLanguages Made Easy unlocks clear and practical methods to createDSLs with easy-to-use interfaces. Author Meinte Boersma lays out an iterative process for creating languages accessible to domain experts such as operations specialists, data analysts, and financial experts. You'll start with an overview of software language engineering before diving into the unique projectional editing paradigm that makes it easy to produce DSLs for business. Imagine if your non-technical clients could safely produce software without the need for anyone to manually write code. Domain-specific languages are purpose-built programming interfaces that makethat possible—no programming experience required. This frees software developers from the time-consuming translation of a client's functional and domain-specific specifications, replacing complex code for modern and intuitive UIs