A Programming Environment for Visual Block-Based Domain-Specific Languages

Autor: Azusa Kurihara, Hiroshi Hosobe, Ken Wakita, Akira Sasaki
Rok vydání: 2015
Předmět:
Domain-specific language
Functional logic programming
Computer science
Comparison of multi-paradigm programming languages
Computer programming
computer.software_genre
Extensible programming
Very high-level programming language
Third-generation programming language
Block (programming)
Reactive programming
Domain-Specific Language
Programming Environment
Macro
Programming domain
Fifth-generation programming language
General Environmental Science
Visual programming language
Declarative programming
Symbolic programming
プログラミング
Programming education
business.industry
Programming language
Second-generation programming language
Basic language
Visual Programming
Inductive programming
Procedural programming
High-level programming language
Programming
Programming paradigm
General Earth and Planetary Sciences
Fourth-generation programming language
First-generation programming language
business
computer
Natural language
Zdroj: SCSE
ISSN: 1877-0509
DOI: 10.1016/j.procs.2015.08.452
Popis: Visual block-based programming is useful for various users such as novice programmers because it provides easy operations and improves the readability of programs. Also, in programming education, it is known to be effective to initially present basic language features and then gradually make more advanced features available. However, the cost of implementing such visual block-based languages remains a challenge. In this paper, we present a programming environment for providing visual block-based domain- specific languages (visual DSLs) that are translatable into various programming languages. In our environment, programs are built by combining visual blocks expressed in a natural language. Blocks represent program elements such as operations and variables. Tips represent snippets, and macro blocks represent procedures. Using Tips and macros make code more abstract, and reduce the number of blocks in code. Visual DSLs can be a front-end for various languages. It can be easily restricted and extended by adding and deleting blocks. We applied our programming environment to Processing, an educational programming language for media art. We show that the environment is useful for novice programmers who learn basic concepts of programming and the features of Processing.
Databáze: OpenAIRE