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Implementation of visual languages using pattern‐based specifications
Author(s) -
Schmidt Carsten,
Kastens Uwe
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/spe.560
Subject(s) - computer science , visual language , variety (cybernetics) , programming language , set (abstract data type) , visual approach , representation (politics) , interface (matter) , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , human–computer interaction , linguistics , philosophy , bubble , maximum bubble pressure method , politics , parallel computing , law , political science , engineering , aerospace engineering
The implementation of visual languages requires a wide range of conceptual and technical knowledge from issues of user interface design and graphical implementation to aspects of analysis and transformation for languages in general. We present a powerful toolset that incorporates such knowledge. Our toolset generates editors from high‐level specifications. A language is specified by identifying certain patterns in the language structure and selecting a visual representation from a set of precoined solutions. Visual programs are represented by attributed abstract trees. Therefore, further phases of processing visual programs can be generated by state‐of‐the‐art tools for language implementation. We demonstrate that even challenging visual languages can be implemented with reasonably little effort and with rather limited technical knowledge. The approach is suitable for a large variety of visual language styles. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.