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mbeddr: instantiating a language workbench in the embedded software domain

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Abstract

Tools can boost software developer productivity, but building custom tools is prohibitively expensive, especially for small organizations. For example, embedded programmers often have to use low-level C with limited IDE support, and integrated into an off-the-shelf tool chain in an ad-hoc way.

To address these challenges, we have built mbeddr, an extensible language and IDE for embedded software development based on C. mbeddr is a large-scale instantiation of the Jetbrains MPS language workbench. Exploiting its capabilities for language modularization and composition, projectional editing and multi-stage transformation, mbeddr is an open and modular framework that lets third parties add extensions to C with minimal effort and without invasive changes. End users can combine extensions in programs as needed.

To illustrate the approach, in this paper we discuss mbeddr’s support for state machines, components, decision tables, requirements tracing, product line variability and program verification and outline their implementation. We also present our experience with building mbeddr, which shows that relying on language workbenches dramatically reduces the effort of building customized, modular and extensible languages and IDEs to the point where this is affordable by small organizations. Finally, we report on the experience of using mbeddr in a commercial project, which illustrates the benefits to end users.

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Notes

  1. http://jetbrains.com/mps.

  2. http://mbeddr.com.

  3. http://www.esterel-technologies.com/products/scade-suite/.

  4. http://www.artop.org/.

  5. http://www.etas.com/.

  6. http://www.mathworks.com/products/simulink.

  7. http://www.mathworks.com/products/sldesignverifier.

  8. http://frama-c.com.

  9. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/slam/.

  10. http://mtc.epfl.ch/software-tools/blast/index-epfl.php.

  11. http://www.eschertech.com/products/ecv.php.

  12. http://www.klocwork.com/.

  13. http://eclipse.org.

  14. MPS does not yet support graphical syntax, but will in 2013. Other projectional editors, such as Intentional’s Domain Workbench (Simonyi et al. 2006) support graphical notations already.

  15. Refactoring transformations work with a single language, and in reverse engineering, transformations go from lower to higher levels of abstraction. However, those two cases are outside the scope of this paper.

  16. The static semantics also have to be composed. As discussed in Voelter (2011), MPS supports the modular definition of type system rules. We provide examples throughout Sect. 4.

  17. http://eclipse.org/xtext.

  18. http://nusmv.fbk.eu.

  19. http://yices.csl.sri.com.

  20. http://www.cs.nyu.edu/acsys/cvc3.

  21. http://yices.csl.sri.com.

  22. http://nusmv.fbk.eu/.

  23. http://patterns.projects.cis.ksu.edu/documentation/patterns/ltl.shtml.

  24. If a product line’s variability were just expressed by a set of Boolean options, the configuration space would grow quickly with 2n, with n representing the number of options.

  25. The upcoming version 3.0 of MPS will support several editors for the same concept.

  26. http://codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/diseconomies-of-scale-and-lines-of-code.html.

  27. During the implementation of the default extensions we found a few bugs in the C base language that prevented modular extension. These were not conceptual problems, but real bugs. They have been fixed, so C can now be extended meaningfully in a modular way.

  28. http://eclipse.org/Xtext.

  29. http://eclipse.org/emf.

  30. http://eclipse.org/modeling.

  31. http://code.google.com/a/eclipselabs.org/p/xtext-typesystem.

  32. http://xsemantics.sourceforge.net.

  33. http://www.infoq.com/presentations/DSL-Magnus-Christerson-Henk-Kolk.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Marcel Matzat and Domenik Pavletic for their work on mbeddr. mbeddr has been supported by the German BMBF, FKZ 01/S11014.

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  1. independent/itemis, Stuttgart, Germany

    Markus Voelter

  2. itemis AG, Stuttgart, Germany

    Bernd Kolb

  3. Fortiss, Munich, Germany

    Daniel Ratiu & Bernhard Schaetz

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  1. Markus Voelter
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Correspondence to Markus Voelter.

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Voelter, M., Ratiu, D., Kolb, B. et al. mbeddr: instantiating a language workbench in the embedded software domain. Autom Softw Eng 20, 339–390 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10515-013-0120-4

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