Hello jBehave Team,
i'm a student from Dresden, Germany currently writing my diploma (master) at
TU-Dresden. I'm currently designing a DSL (aka. writing an easy to use API)
within Flex3. I assume you have quite some knowledge about language design,
what makes me write to this list and ask for a few directions.
Maybe you can refer me to a book or an important article which i should
definitely read and haven't found yet -- i'm sure there are many --
Thanks in advance,
Uwe Jugel
OK, here's my problem and its constraints i hope it's not to fuzzy:
== Problem ==
I will create a web development framework (prototype) for creating
clientside UIs. The framework will be used by lay programmers.
The created target applications are usually based on some simple workflow
models and can be described as state machines.
== Example ==
This is how a simple application might look like:
view: simple Login screen
view: selectable Articlelist
data from Webservice updated onLoad
view: show Article stats
editable text-attributes from WS updated onLoad updateable via another
WS
dynamic values "polled" from a WS (maybe inclue messaging like JMS)
subview: show special Info about Article
view: Logout (returns to Login)
== Constraints ==
My base tools are:
Adobe Flex 3 (ActionScript + MXML): a Java like language which mixes general
curly braced code and XML-declarations (like Java + XML or like JS + HTML)
Adobe FlexBuilder: a commercial Eclipse plugin including a good UI-designer,
debugging, code completion etc.
as Flex compiles to flash-movies it is mostly client side code, but might
still contain some business logic
the produced client apps run within the flashplayer, i.e. in every browser.
the backend (persistence layer and business logic) is a webservice oriented
architecture which i assume to behave intelligently so i can focus more on
the client side
== Goals ==
My "framework" should be easy to use (easy learning curve) and be used
to define workflows,
to bind data/webservices to UI-Widgets,
to declare simple behavior/connections between UI-Widgets,
to express simple conditions (maybe)
== Research Goals ==
Therefore i should be researching other (rapid) web development frameworks
(currently only: ruby on rails, which consumed quite some time in the
beginning), graphical development techniques and language based techniques.
I have read a good number of articles about rails, programming, DSLs , IDEs,
graphical tools, other tools, language design etc.
== Current Work / My Idea ==
I recently decided to write an "internal DSL" to get symbolic integration
with the base language and the tools (Flex3 and FlexBuilder). The idea is to
use the UI-designer for easy creation of named widgets and be able to use
their names easily within myDSL and thus within the IDE. Some portions of
the problem can not be covered by creating a "simple" library and an Eclpise
plugin or external tool has to be provided (not the main focus).
In a nutshell: lay programmer will layout with the UI-designer and "code"
mainly in myDSL within an Eclipse-IDE
I hope this is a good abstract of my problem and that you maybe have a few
directions for me.
Thanks and best regards,
Uwe Jugel
--
Uwe Jugel
fon: +49 351 7962858
mobile: +49 173 5858212
