Good tutorials to understand Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) from the scratch , to start a survey thesis [closed]

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My thesis topic is about Domain Specific languages in general, I want to focus on design or implementation for external or internal DSLs but I can't even think or start because I am facing problems with understanding the concept of DSLs ..

I have read and collected so many papers and surveys about this issue but all of them I consider as advanced.. I need a good tutorial ( for beginners ) to understand the whole concept and phases for DSLs from the scratch ..

I have read the first chapter for DSL by Martin Fowler , Fowler started with state machines and hard programming code开发者_Go百科s from the first page of his book and the problem is that I am not very good in programming in general, I have no experience, my thesis will be a survey about DSLs with no programming work. Until now I don't know what to focus on because the survey should be specific on on area like designing techniques or comparisons in designing or implementing , but because I cant get the big picture I can't even decide. Any suggestions about this issue also I will really appreciate that.

Please help me and thank you very much. I always look at the questions and answers in this great website and I believe that I will find a solution for my nightmare problem here!

Thanks a lot

Nat

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This book is Bible for DSL's in my opinion. This book used to be free when it was in draft. You can also find other learning resources there.

Go through this post to find successful DSL's. This post might help you in identifying various flavors and various domains where they are being used.

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It will be a lot of work for you if you want to understand it, so if you are not skillful with programming, learn it or choose easier thesis.

I wrote my thesis about model driven software development and domain specific languages withouth even a basic knowledge about modeling etc. It can be done, but I spent much time reading (which I enjoyed).

For the most basic introduction I would recommend se-radio.net podcast episodes 5 and 6 (...and there are many more about more advanced topics on MDSD/DSLs).

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I'd read James Neighbors thesis, after reading his executive summary. He's the guy that defined the terms "domain analysis" and "domain engineering" in the context of defining "domain specific languages". And he shows a program generation system, Draco, that generates an astonishing variety of complex application codes based on these ideas. (The thesis is a lot more readable than you might expect, but expect to see some real code!).

You can read some history on this topic, too, and once again, how those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.