research-article

Language Design for Program Manipulation

Authors:

Eduardus A. T. Merks,

J. Michael Dyck,

Robert D. CameronAuthors Info & Claims

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Volume 18, Issue 1

Pages 19 - 32

https://doi.org/10.1109/32.120313

Published: 01 January 1992 Publication History

Abstract

The design of procedural and object-oriented programming languages is considered with respect to how easily programs written in those languages can be formally manipulated. Current procedural languages such as Pascal, Modula-2 and Ada; generally support such program manipulations, except for some annoying anomalies and special cases. Three main areas of language design are identified as being of concern from a manipulation viewpoint: the interface between concrete and abstract syntax; the relationship between the abstract syntax and static semantics naming, scoping and typing; and the ability to express basic transformations (folding and unfolding). Design principles are suggested so that the problems identified for current languages can be avoided in the future.

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Cited By

van Tonder RLe Goues CRothermel GBae D(2020)Tailoring programs for static analysis via program transformationProceedings of the ACM/IEEE 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3377811.3380343(824-834)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3377811.3380343
van Tonder RLe Goues CMcKinley KFisher K(2019)Lightweight multi-language syntax transformation with parser parser combinatorsProceedings of the 40th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3314221.3314589(363-378)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3314221.3314589
van Tonder RGoues CShihab EWagner S(2019)Towards s/engineer/botProceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Bots in Software Engineering10.1109/BotSE.2019.00019(43-47)Online publication date: 27-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/BotSE.2019.00019
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Index Terms

Language Design for Program Manipulation
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Formal language definitions
2. Theory of computation
  1. Formal languages and automata theory

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Comments on "Language Design for Program Manipulation"

The paper by E.A.T. Merks et al. "Language design for program manipulation" identifies design principles for a procedural or object-oriented language whose programs will be easier to manipulate. However, it neglects to relate these design principles to ...
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A Practical Comparison of Two Object-Oriented Languages

The author compares two very different object-oriented programming languages, Flavors and C++, with respect to their merits and how design decisions in each language influence various aspects of programming. The fundamental difference between the two ...

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Published In

cover image IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering Volume 18, Issue 1

January 1992

97 pages

ISSN:0098-5589

Editor:
Victor R. Basili
Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD

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Copyright © Copyright © 1992 IEEE. All Rights Reserved.

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IEEE Press

Publication History

Published: 01 January 1992

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Cited By

van Tonder RLe Goues CRothermel GBae D(2020)Tailoring programs for static analysis via program transformationProceedings of the ACM/IEEE 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3377811.3380343(824-834)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3377811.3380343
van Tonder RLe Goues CMcKinley KFisher K(2019)Lightweight multi-language syntax transformation with parser parser combinatorsProceedings of the 40th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3314221.3314589(363-378)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3314221.3314589
van Tonder RGoues CShihab EWagner S(2019)Towards s/engineer/botProceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Bots in Software Engineering10.1109/BotSE.2019.00019(43-47)Online publication date: 27-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/BotSE.2019.00019
Griswold W(1994)Comments on "Language Design for Program Manipulation"IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/32.26892420:3(218-219)Online publication date: 1-Mar-1994
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/32.268924

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