HyCom: a domain specific language for hypermedia application development

Abstract

Presents HyCom, a domain-specific language (DSL) for hypermedia authoring embedded in the language Haskell. HyCom provides a declarative framework for describing hypermedia designs and also automatic application generation. We propose HyCom as a bridge between engineering models and implementation environments. HyCom is based on the principle of programming by combination. A hypermedia application is constructed by the combination and transformation of components, promoting the reuse of existing assets and the abstraction of common patterns. The resulting framework is flexible and practical - yet rigorous and formal - enabling the effective representation of existing engineering methods primitives without loss of expressiveness. We present a real situation in which HyCom is used in the definition of an application developed following systematic steps. By means of an example, we show the general principles underlying its use for the mapping of design concepts to implementation environments.