When identifying the modeling concepts, it is of key importance to focus on a
narrow application domain and your actual needs for it, knowing that you can change
the language when your requirements change. This support for language evolution is
essential when it comes to making a choice of what DSM tooling to choose. Good
environments allow such evolution, automatically updating all the models created
previously with the language, whereas with less mature environments you can end up
having to freeze or rebuild your models.
266 DSM LANGUAGE DEFINITION
CHAPTER 11
GENERATOR DEFINITION
Building a generator is one of the two main tasks when creating a Domain-Speci?¬?c
Modeling (DSM) solution. The idea of code generation is by no means new: most
developers will be familiar with the ?¬?xed generators supplied with generic modeling
tools, and many readers may well have written their own little scripts or macros to
generate repetitive code. A DSM generator is closer to the latter, because it is built by
you for your speci?¬?c purpose, rather than by a tool vendor aiming for the widest
possible market. It must however go further than most scripts or macros, since it is
intended for automated use by people other than its creator, and its output will not
normally be edited??”or even checked??”by hand.
Although a DSM generator must aspire to higher quality than ad hoc scripts and
macros, a problem in a DSM generator is less severe than with ?¬?xed generators
supplied with modeling tools.
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