A Mde Approach for Language Engineering

Many development tools of modern Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) make an intensive use of abstract syntax tree (AST) representations of the software. This is the case of refactors, code formatters, or content assistants, among others. Such AST is usually an instance of an object oriented abstract syntax model. We propose to center the attention of Language Engineering (LE) on this model. We propose to use UML as the abstract syntax metamodel because UML tools provide code generators for different programming languages for model implementation. As well as an abstract syntax, a concrete syntax of the language it is also necessary. We are concerned about textual languages, whose concrete syntax is usually given as a BNF grammar. Instead, we propose to stereotype the abstract syntax model by means of a profile, aimed at concrete syntax definition. Applying Model Driven Engineering (MDE) practices several development artifacts can be automatically generated.