DSLs and customization

Fred Thwaites has asked a question in response to this post. He asks:

"Does this imply that in general users of DSL in VS2005 will need to be aware of this metamodel, or will VS2005 come with a comprehensive set of predefined DSL's filling all the cells of Jack Greenfields software factory schema grid."

and

"Secondly, how fragmented do you feel DSL's will become? Do you expect that in most cases the VS supplied DSL will suffice, or do you see companies, departments and even projects regulally creating of extending DSL's."

In answer to the first question, those who build the DSL tools using our technology will be aware of the metamodel - or domain model as we call it - which is a key part of defining such tools. Users of the the tools so built will not need to be aware of this model, although, of course, they will need to understand the concepts in the domain which it encodes. However, we do not expect most tool-building users to start from scratch everytime, but instead we (and possibly others) will provide 'vanilla' (and not so vanilla) languages in the form of templates to get started. If you try out the December release of the DSL tools, or even just read through the walkthroughs, you will see that the process of building a designer begins by running a wizard, in which you can select a language template on which to base your own DSL. The set if templates is limited at the moment, but we have plans to expand it.

In answer to the second question, a key motivation for the DSLs approach is that as you get serious about automating aspects of your software development processes you find that the 'off-the-shelf' languages/tools either don't quite fit your needs, or fail completely to address your domain. So I fully expect companies, possibly departaments and perhaps projects, creating, customizing and extending DSLs, although in many cases they'll do so from an existing template - it won't be necessary to start from scratch very often.

It is also worth noting that DSLs will evolve as requirements for automation evolve - for example, as the scope of code generation grows. The process might go something like this: I have a DSL for describing executable business processes, and I'm generating a fair chunk of my on-line systems from these models. This DSL has encoded some information very specific to my organization, for example the particular set of roles that my users can play and the particular set of channels through which they can interact with the business process. As these don't change very frequently, it's easier just to make a list of them as part of the definition of the DSL (simplifies the use of the DSL, simplifies the code generated, etc.), rather than extend the DSL to allow new ones to be defined. If they need to be changed later, then the DSL can be udpated, and a new version of the tools released (with appropriate migration tools as well). I then observe that by extending that DSL, or complementing it with another to describe security aspects, say, (noting that the description of security parameters will need to reference elements of the executable business process model), I can then extend the reach of my code generators to put in the necessary plumbing to handle security.