Agile Language Engineering

Language engineering is software engineering concerned with computer languages. In this paper, we apply agile principles for software engineering to language engineering, analyse the technological premises and work out the methodical implications. The result is an agile language engineering process that is geared to ever changing requirements and fosters higher language quality, software quality, and developer productivity. It provides short iteration cycles, intensive user integration, control over frequent changes, and continuous delivery of valuable language tools. We investigate, how well-known techniques and tools from language and software engineering can be instrumented in this process. As discussed in the paper, agile language engineering is particular useful for the development of domain-specific languages.