Architects Rule! : ALM

WebDSL - a Case Study in Domain-Specific Language Engineering

pdestoop — Mon, 26 May 2008 10:02:00 GMT

Delft University of Technology: WebDSL - a Case Study in Domain-Specific Language Engineering

The goal of domain-specific languages (DSLs) is to increase the productivity of software engineers by abstracting from low-level boilerplate code. Introduction of DSLs in the software development process requires a smooth workflow for the production of DSLs themselves. This requires technology for designing and implementing DSLs, but also a methodology for using that technology. That is, a collection of guidelines, design patterns, and reusable DSL components that show developers how to tackle common language design and implementation issues. This paper presents a case study in domain-specific language engineering. It reports on a project in which the author designed and built WebDSL, a DSL for web applications with a rich data model, using several DSLs for DSL engineering: SDF for syntax definition and Stratego/XT for code generation. The paper follows the stages in the development of the DSL.

The contributions of the paper are three-fold:

(1) A tutorial in the application of the specific SDF and Stratego/XT technology for building DSLs.

(2) A description of an incremental DSL development process.

(3) A domain specific language for web-applications with rich data models. The paper concludes with a survey of related approaches.

Source: http://swerl.tudelft.nl/twiki/pub/Main/TechnicalReports/TUD-SERG-2008-023.pdf

Guidance Automation Toolkit: new release!

pdestoop — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:39:00 GMT

About Guidance Automation Toolkit & Extensions

The Guidance Automation Extensions (GAX) expands the capabilities of Visual Studio by allowing architects and developers to run guidance packages, such as those included in Software Factories, which automate key development tasks from within the Visual Studio environment.

The Guidance Automation Toolkit (GAT) is a guidance package which allows architects to author rich, integrated user experiences for reusable assets including Software Factories, frameworks, and patterns. The resulting Guidance Packages, composed of templates, wizards and recipes, help developers build solutions in a way consistent with the architecture guidance. In order to use the Guidance Automation Toolkit, you must first install the Guidance Automation Extensions.

New In This Release

The February 2008 Release of the Guidance Automation Extensions and Guidance Automation Toolkit has the following improvements to the earlier release, the July 2007 Community Technology Preview:

− Support for Visual Studio 2005 and/or Visual Studio 2008. This version of GAX will run on either version of Visual Studio. If you don’t have GAX installed, you can install GAX to support Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio 2008 or both. The installer will automatically determine which versions of Visual Studio you have installed.

− Updating GAX.

§ If you have a previous version of GAX installed on Visual Studio 2005, it will be updated to the February 2008 release of GAX. You are no longer required to uninstall GAX and the corresponding guidance packages.

§ Guidance packages that are registered with the previous version of GAX will automatically be registered with the current version of GAX (GAT, however, will require an update – see the information below).

− Visual Studio side-by-side support. If you have Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 running side-by-side, you can have GAX running against both versions. Guidance packages developed and registered through GAT for a specific version of Visual Studio (2005 or 2008) will only be available in that version. Guidance packages designed for Visual Studio 2005 and installed through an MSI will only be available in Visual Studio 2005. Installation of any guidance package through an MSI that does not explicitly prompt for the version of Visual Studio to install to, will install to Visual Studio 2005 by default.

− Improved Uninstaller. During GAX uninstallation, you can click the Check Installed Packages button for the list of all registered guidance packages. If you proceed with GAX removal, the uninstaller will only attempt to automatically uninstall those guidance packages that were registered manually using GAT. If you have guidance packages that were installed through an MSI(s), you should not proceed with removing GAX. Instead, you should use the Add or Remove Programs tool to uninstall these guidance packages.

In addition, this release of GAX has the following fixes:

− A blank error message was displayed if you attempted to uninstall GAX before uninstalling GAT or other registered packages when running Windows Vista.

− A FileLoadException error was displayed if you used the Guidance Package Manager on Visual Studio 2008 Professional.

GAX and GAT would not properly validate and recognize custom Visual Studio project types when unfolding templates for custom project types registered only in the experimental hive.

Resources

· MSDN site: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/aa718948.aspx

· Community Forum: http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/showforum.aspx?forumid=78&siteid=1

Forrester Publishes Application Server Platforms Report, Q3 2007

pdestoop — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 21:20:00 GMT

Summary

On July 11th, Forrester released its Application Server Platforms Wave. Forrester defines an application server platform as “infrastructure software for building Web and composite applications and, increasingly, applications based on service-oriented architecture (SOA) design principles”. Forrester evaluated 9 vendors in the assessment – BEA Systems, IBM, Magic Software, Microsoft, Oracle, Pegasystems, Red Hat’s JBoss Division, SAP and Sun Microsystems – each offering application life-cycle coverage and a cohesive product or suite of products. Forrester evaluated these nine vendors in five different scenarios – Application Server Platforms, Conventional Platforms for Web Applications, Conventional Platforms for SOA Applications, Java/J2EE and Java EE Platforms, and Independent SOA Platforms – with Microsoft placing as a leader in every evaluation, save the Java-specific scenario.

Check out the full report at MS PressPass

Key MS messages about this report findings:

Forrester found Microsoft to be a Leader in each of the five analyses, falling short of only Oracle in advanced feature criteria like business event management and real-time. Application server platforms are one of the most strategic investments of all application platforms, and Microsoft is pleased that Forrester deemed it a clear market leader, especially when you consider Forrester’s evaluation does not consider the new capabilities Microsoft will ship in the next eight months via Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and .NET Framework 3.5.
The recent release of the .NET Framework 3.0 (with WCF) and BizTalk Server 2006 deliver a robust and industry-leading SOA platform to customers today. Microsoft will expand this capability when Microsoft ships BizTalk Server 2006 R2 in September and the next version of the .NET Framework in early 2008. Microsoft is committed to extend its market position of delivering the broadest, best integrated and most affordable platform for executing your SOA workloads.
The Microsoft Application Platform is a portfolio of technology capabilities, core products, and best practice guidance focused on helping IT and development department’s partner with the business to maximize opportunity. The core products of the Microsoft Application Platform – SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and BizTalk Server 2006 – can help you drive the right business efficiencies, customer connections and value-added services to: prioritize for the best ROI, advance the speed of information, and enable people at all levels to make the decisions that drive business success.

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Patterns & Practices Performance Testing Guidance Project

pdestoop — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 10:28:00 GMT

The patterns & practices group has come out with a new community release of the Performance Testing Guidance project. The purpose of this project is to build some insightful and practical guidance around doing performance testing and using Visual Studio 2005. It's a collaborative effort between industry experts, Microsoft ACE, patterns & practices, Premier, and VSTS team members.

Performance Testing Guidance Project

Technorati Tags: ALM