Improving Productivity in the Development of Large Software Systems. E-L Reference Manual.
Abstract
The documents included in this package constitute the progress report covering Phase I of the project Improving Productivity in the Development of Large Software Systems. The deliverables for Phase I, as outlined in section 8 of the proposal, fall into the categories of environment, language framework, and code generator. The last of these categories is discussed in the document Coagulating Code Generator-Prototype Implementation. The first two categories have a more indirect relationship with the other three documents in this report. It has been our contention from the outset that there must be a close connection between the designs of an environment and language. To quote from the proposal, the difficulty is that environments have usually been afterthoughts to the language design and the existence of a powerful environment...affects the nature of the language. As our research progressed during Phase 1, we became increasingly convinced of the tightness of the connection, to the point of choosing the name E-L, for environment and language, to describe our design. Programming manual is something we expect a substantial percentage of E-L programmers to use, as they become more sophisticated in their use of the system. The E-L Definition is more than just an extended reference manual. It also includes what would be considered rationale material in other language descriptions. This is motivated by the desire to convey the issues that arise when doing an extension. Much of what looks built-in is in fact based on E-L's extension mechanisms, and when a programmer is considering an extension, it is natural that he should know the principles that governed the design of built-in extensions .
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 15, 1986
- Accession Number
- ADA169382