Defining DSL Expressions Collaboratively in Multidisciplinary Embedded Engineering

Abstract

To a larger extent than in other software applications, embedded systems commonly require the participation of a mixture of engineers that collaboratively produce a piece of software. This makes this area particularly prone to Domain Specific Languages (DSLs). By raising the abstraction level, DSLs facilitate the understanding of a DSL specification by engineers with different backgrounds. By being domain-specific, DSLs makes possible the separation of concerns that are not possible to separate at code level, and this in turn, facilitates the collaborative specification of DSL expressions. However, "these DSL views" are rarely orthogonal, and dependencies commonly exist among them. In some cases, task serialization along those dependencies might be a solution but at the cost of reducing task parallelization. Rather, this paper introduces "an assertive approach": all DSL view developments are launched from the start, and engineers can request from their mates, who are working on a different view, to prioritize some tasks so that they can continue. Realizing this vision implies: (1) explicitly stating DSL dependencies and (2), the existence of view-aware editors that interpret such dependencies during the collaborative specification of DSL expressions. This approach is borne out by MUVIE, a view-aware DSL editor implemented on top of GMF.