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Meta-Packages: Painless Domain Specific Languages

Software Engineering 2015-06-11 v1

Abstract

Domain Specific Languages are used to provide a tailored modelling notation for a specific application domain. There are currently two main approaches to DSLs: standard notations that are tailored by adding simple properties; new notations that are designed from scratch. There are problems with both of these approaches which can be addressed by providing access to a small meta-language based on packages and classes. A meta-modelling approach based on meta-packages allows a wide range of DSLs to be defined in a standard way. The DSLs can be processed using standard object-based extension at the meta-level and existing tooling can easily be defined to adapt to the new languages. This paper introduces the concept of meta-packages and provides a simple example.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1506.03381,
  title  = {Meta-Packages: Painless Domain Specific Languages},
  author = {Tony Clark},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1506.03381},
  year   = {2015}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-22T09:51:11.643Z