[...]... to understand the programming examples DSL Tools can be downloaded as part of the Visual Studio SDK and used with Visual Studio Professional Edition and later Tools created using the DSL Tools can be deployed on Visual Studio Standard Edition and later The website http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/DSLTools/ is the entry point to information about the DSL Tools There you can find links to where the SDK... Author, Software Engineering with Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Redmond, WA March 2007 Preface This book is a software developer’s guide to using the Microsoft Tools for Domain-Specific Languages ( DSL Tools ), which are included in the SDK (Software Development Kit) for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 The software industry is showing considerable interest in using domain-specific languages,” an... than software development specialists After reading this book, you should be able to assess the capabilities of the DSL Tools to address problems of this kind, either directly or after some customization Preface Organization of This Book • Chapter 1, Domain-Specific Development, explains the DSL approach, compares it with similar techniques, and introduces typical scenarios in which a DSL is used •... Figure 10-6: Shell architecture of a typical DSL tool 428 Figure 10-7: Class diagrams example, with context menu on association 429 Figure 10-8: DSL using nested child shapes 443 Figure 10-9: DSL with nested child shapes and non-nested connectors 444 Figure 10-10: Using the Collapse button 444 Figure 10-11: State Chart model 447 Figure 10-12: Running DSL with movable state shapes 447 Figure 11-1: Feature... or Soft Constraints? 277 Choices Made by the DSL Tools 280 Soft Constraints in the DSL Tools 280 Validation Methods 282 Enabling Validation 284 Invoking Validation 288 Custom Validation Categories 289 Inheriting Validation Behavior 292 Validation Output 292 Using Validation Outside the IDE 293 Validation Against External Data 294 Hard Constraints in the DSL Tools 295 Rules 296 Putting Together Hard and... Microsoft DSL Tools It explains how to create and use languages, how to tune them to your needs, and how to employ them within the context of your project The book should also be of significant value to readers who are interested in the broader general topic of domain-specific languages, or who wish to compare and contrast different approaches to model-driven development, or tools that support modeldriven development. .. modeldriven development Chapters 1 and 11 discuss the more general topic of domain-specific languages, and how you go about designing one The middle chapters focus exclusively on providing a detailed yet readable reference on building DSLs and code generators using the DSL Tools The book’s authors are the main designers of the Microsoft DSL Tools They have worked together on the product since its inception,... software The goal of the Microsoft DSL Tools is to bridge that gap What if we could make it as easy to sketch a design in the language of the problem domain as it is to draw on a whiteboard, and then progressively annotate the sketch until it were sufficiently rich to become an executable model? That technology isn’t here yet, but the DSL Tools are a huge leap forward The DSL Tools democratize the creation... supply chains with component marketplaces and well-defined rules for reuse The DSL Tools will be remembered as a pivotal step in that transformation There are no better individuals to write this book than Steve Cook, Gareth Jones, Stuart Kent, and Alan Cameron Wills They are the creators of the DSL Tools They have decades of experience in the use and design of prior generations of modeling tools This depth... popular online forum with active discussions about the DSL Tools, weblogs containing discussions about the DSL Tools by the authors of this book and others, a tool for reporting bugs and making suggestions, white papers, chats, and other resources Acknowledgments The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following people who contributed materially to the design, development, documentation, . DSL 53 Evolving the DSLs 55 Interpretive Architectures 56 Creating a DSL in Visual Studio 57 Creating a DSL Authoring Solution in Visual Studio 57 Trying Out the DSL Solution 61 Defining the DSL. Lippert, Visual Studio Tools for Office: Using C# with Excel, Word, Outlook, and InfoPath, 0-321-33488-4 Eric Carter and Eric Lippert, Visual Studio Tools for Office: Using Visual Basic 2005 with. Chand, Graphics Programming with GDI+, 0-321-16077-0 Steve Cook, Gareth Jones, Stuart Kent, Alan Cameron Wills, Domain-Specific Development with Visual Studio DSL Tools, 0-321-39820-3 Krzysztof