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Systematic mapping study on domain-specific language development tools ˜ Carbonell1 · Luciano Marchezan1 · Elder Rodrigues1 · An´ıbal Iung1 · Joao Maicon Bernardino1 · Fabio Paulo Basso1 · Bruno Medeiros1

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract Domain-specific languages (DSL) are programming or modeling languages devoted to a given application domain. There are many tools used to support the implementation of a DSL, making hard the decision-making process for one or another. In this sense, identifying and mapping their features is relevant for decision-making by academic and industrial initiative on DSL development. Objective: The goal of this work is to identify and map the tools, Language Workbenches (LW), or frameworks that were proposed to develop DSLs discussed and referenced in publications between 2012 and 2019. Method: A Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) of the literature scoping tools for DSL development. Results: We identified 59 tools, including 9 under a commercial license and 41 with non-commercial licenses, and analyzed their features from 230 papers. Conclusion: There is a substantial amount of tools that cover a large number of features. Furthermore, we observed that usually, the developer adopts one type of notation to implement the DSL: textual or graphical. We also discuss research gaps, such as a lack of tools that allow meta-meta model transformations and that support modeling tools interoperability. Keywords DSL · Domain-specific language · Language workbench · Model driven engineering · DSL-supporting tools · Systematic mapping study · Systematic review

1 Introduction The implementation of computer systems for a specific domain is becoming more complex, integrating many areas of knowledge. For example, the codification of modern Web systems demands several implementation concerns such as usability, security, persistence, and business rules. To assist the development of these different concerns independently of the coding technology, software engineers are adopting the development of Domain-Specific Communicated by: Daniel Amyot  An´ıbal Iung

[email protected]

Extended author information available on the last page of the article.

Empirical Software Engineering

Languages (DSL) (Fowler 2010), which are one of the most widely used approaches for modeling and coding features from a given domain. DSLs have been developed for a large variety of domains including performance tests development (Bernardino et al. 2016), machine deep learning (Zhao and Huang 2018), object-oriented domain-driven design (Le et al. 2018), automatic creation of timetables for schools (Ribi´c et al. 2018), and database language for communication and query (Fowler 2010). In this context, to design all the elements that capture software requirements, the development of graphical and/or textual DSLs is required to offer end-users the best front-end. A DSL allows a higher level of abstraction than that of programming/modeling languages commonly used in Software Engineering daily pract