1. DS(M)Ls for End-Users and Domain Experts? Panel on Creating DSLs Models in Software Engineering Workshop Zurich, Switzerland June 3, 2012 Jeff Gray University of Alabama Department of Computer Science Portions of slide figures from Yu Sun, Hyun Cho, and Hui Wu

2. Shameless Plug  12 th Edition of Domain-Specific Modeling Workshop at SPLASH/OOPSLA  Note: The workshop precedes the MDA release date!  More details coming soon at:  http://www.dsmforum.org/events/DSM12/  CFP available next week; “coming to a mailing list near you…” 2

3. Summary Position for this Panel  Many of the motivations for DSM are expressed in a way that claim benefits for end-users and domain experts (who may not be computer scientists)  Designing a suitable/usable “language” implies more than just the concrete and abstract syntax, or even semantics – tooling and abstraction purity are just as important  To achieve deeper impact, we need to realize the places where leaks of abstraction boundaries emerge between the problem/solution spaces, and how that affects end- user adoption 3

4. 44 DS(M)Ls for End-Users Admin Assistants Business Person Auto Factory Worker Scientist Spreadsheet Business Query Systems Modeling Language DSL for Physics

5. Common Claim when Introducing DSM “DSM allows domain experts or end-users to focus on issues of the problem space, while ignoring accidental complexities of the solution space.” 5

6. The Irony  A technology meant to enable end-users to participate in software development, does not enable end-users to change and evolve the software, or even assist in describing their own language 6 End-UsersEnd-User Developers Upgrade Using DSM End-Users Degrade Modeling SystemModel Evolution

7. Example1: Difficult to Learn and Use MTLs 7 End-Users Metamodel Diversity of MTLs Programming Concepts

8. 8 Example 2: Tooling Abstraction Leaks 8 Domain Experts program at DSL level DSL translated into General Purpose Language (GPL) Domain Experts deal with DSL Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Editor Compiler Visualizer Debugger Domain Experts deal with GPL Profiler Test Engine

9. 9 By Demonstration Approaches for Language Support Add, Remove, Update Providing users with a capability to demonstrate their own language through examples may assist in reducing the gap between domain experts and language design experts After the language is stable, users still need to participate fully in the management of models; allow users to demonstrate/debug/test models at the abstraction level they are familiar with