introducing language-oriented business applications - markus voelter

L O B A Language-‐Oriented Business Applica4ons

Markus Völter

[email protected] www.voelter.de @markusvoelter

Introducing

1 Business Agility 2 Language Workbenches 3 JetBrains MPS 4  LOBA Examples + Demo 5  The Big Picture 6 Summary

1 Business Agility

Reality

Goal!?

Expressivity for Core Domain Knowledge

User-‐Friendly Nota4on

Tes4ng

Meaningful Analyses

Synthesis of SoZware

And us developers?

Any number of technologies,

frameworks and Tools.

Word, Excel and ugly, unproduc4ve web apps.

Things to Remember

Let Business/Domain people contribute directly!

Give them expressive, produc4ve tools to do so!

2 Language

Workbenches

DSL

DSL interpreter

generator

DSL interpreter generator

An old idea from the 1970s.

BUT...

Language Workbench

(Mar4n Fowler)

Freely define integrate

them

languages and

Language Workbench

(Mar4n Fowler)

Freely define integrate

them

languages and

Language Workbench

(Mar4n Fowler)

+ more detailed criteria I will omit here

powerful edi4ng tes4ng

refactoring debugging

language defini4on IDE defini4on

implies

+ teamwork

Language Workbench

(Mar4n Fowler)

LWBs make Languages Easier

Several different LWBs exist.

Blur the dis4nc4on between programming and modeling.

h4p://languageworkbenches.net

3 JetBrains MPS

Open Source Apache 2.0 hep://jetbrains.com/mps

[Language Workbench]

+ Refactorings, Find Usages, Syntax Coloring, Debugging, ...

Projec4onal Edi4ng

Parsing Projec4onal Edi4ng

[Projec4onal Edi4ng]

Regular Code/Text Mathema4cal

Tables Graphical

Syntac4c Flexibility [Projec4onal Edi4ng]

L2 L1

Separate Files In One File

Type System Transforma4on Constraints

Type System Transforma4on Constraints Syntax IDE

Language Composi4on [Projec4onal Edi4ng]

50+ extensions to C 10+ extensions to requirements lang.

Projec4onal Edi4ng provides syntac4c flexibility and lang. extensibility.

Usability Issues are mostly solved.

MPS is great, but alterna4ves exist.

4 LOBA

Examples

[Enterprise Applica4on] Modellwerkstae

Retail: Invoice Checking, Cash Point Con-‐ trolling, Purchasing Contracts, Inventory Mgt

End Users: 40 users, several sites

Language Users: 6

Language Developers: 1.5

h4p://www.modellwerksta4.org/

Size of System/Data: ??

[Enterprise Applica4on] Modellwerkstae

[Enterprise Applica4on] Bundesagentur für Arbeit

Government Administra4on: IT system for the German employment agency

End Users: 120.000

Language Users: 60 in 6 Scrum Teams

Language Developers: > 10

Size of System/Data: 5.000 model (text) files with 400 UI masks (when done), 300 enTTes, 1.100 operaTons. Database 8TB. 70 App Servers, 15 Linux Boxes.

[Enterprise Applica4on] Bundesagentur für Arbeit

Qualitative Change

[Business Applica4on] Insurance Configura4on Tool

Insurance Contract Defini4on: Insurance Math, data types, business/payment rules

End Users: Thousands

Language Users: Dozens

Language Developers: 3



Insurance Contract Defini4on: Insurance math, pension payment rules

End Users: Thousands

Language Users: Dozens



[Tax/Benefits Applica4on] Dutch Tax Agency (Evalua4on)

Benefits Calcula4on:

End Users: Hundreds

Language Users: 15


Size of System/Data: Process data for 6 million ciTzens, 250 data types, 160 business concepts, 400 message types, 100 business funcTons, 10 services

[Tax/Benefits Applica4on] Dutch Tax Agency (Evalua4on)

[Business Applica4on] Telco Demo App

Telco Price Calcula4ons: Data structures, math rules, business rules, contract definiTons

End Users: -‐-‐

Language Users: -‐-‐


Size of System/Data: -‐-‐

[Business Applica4on] Telco Demo App

5 The Big Picture

[LOBA]

Lang 1

System: LWB

Lang 2 Lang 3

Lang 4 Lang 5 Lang N ...

[LOBA]

Core Business

Logic }Business Rules (Financial) Calculations

Data Structures Mappings or Queries

Validations Scientific Processes

Contracts

Processes UI

Most business people are able to and want to express themselves precisely!

Let‘s give them the tools to do it!

Languages/ IDEs

Forms/ Applica4ons

L O B A

Applica4ons are ways to work with Data.

Tools are ways to work with Data. { author

read analyze process

Data Formats are

almost Languages.

Structure, Constraints, SemanTcs

+ Syntax + IDE Data Format

Language

Language Workbenches

[almost]

Language Engineering }author analyze

compose execute

Language Workbenches enable us (developers) to build really

expressive tools for business people to work with data effec4vely.

Structure Nota4on Guidance Layout Views IDE/Tool

+ Mixed

+ Predefined

* Clean

-‐ Text -‐

Custom 1

Powerful

Structure Nota4on Guidance Layout Views IDE/Tool

Business oriented languages are very different from what we have

learned about languages for developers. LWBs let you build

such languages.

Let‘s combines the best of Languages and Form-‐based Tools.

L O B A

„Language“ inter-‐ preted liberally – new styles for languages.

A new Paradigm for Applica4ons

L O B A

„Language“ inter-‐ preted liberally – new styles for languages.

A new Paradigm for Applica4ons

Form Lang

Form Language

Expressions „Code“

Code CompleTon Error HighlighTng Version Control Refactoring Debugging

Helper Bu4ons Tables

Rigid Structures Tree Views

VisualizaTons Live InterpretaTon Math NotaTon

Graphical Prose + Code

6 Summary

Expressivity for Core Domain Knowledge User-‐Friendly Nota4on Tes4ng Meaningful Analyses Synthesis of SoZware


Build Language for Domain!


Build Language for Domain! You‘ve seen the demos.


Build Language for Domain! You‘ve seen the demos. Integrated DSLs for tes4ng.


Build Language for Domain! You‘ve seen the demos. An integrated DSL for tes4ng. Types, Consistency, Checking


Build Language for Domain! You‘ve seen the demos. An integrated DSL for tes4ng. Types, Consistency, Checking Code Genera4on.

Fundamentally s4ll manual, no AI.

But much beeer tooling.

Become Language Engineering Experts.

Focus on architecture & technology, engineering

One more thing

The Web

LWBs on the Web Xtext and MPS teams are working on it

It will be months to years un4l these are finished/robust.

Other web-‐LWBs (prototypes) exist: hep://languageworkbenches.net

The Web

Two more more things

Transac4onal data stays in databases.

We don‘t want to replace the math wiz‘ tools.

Two more more things

If you have to build a business app,

consider using an LWB as the founda4on,

and recas4ng the „applica4on“ as a set of languages.

source

[Read & Learn]

Thank you!!

[email protected] www.voelter.de @markusvoelter

introducing language-oriented business applications - markus voelter

Presentations & Public Speaking

thousands language users

sites language users

dozens language developers

language deni4on ide

inventory mgt end users

size of systemdata

insurance math

syntac4c exibility