TexMo: A multi-language development environment

Abstract

Contemporary software systems contain a large number of artifacts expressed in multiple languages, ranging from domain-specific languages to general purpose languages. These artifacts are interrelated to form software systems. Existing development environments insufficiently support handling relations between artifacts in multiple languages. This paper presents a taxonomy for multi-language development environments, organized according to language representation, representation of relations between languages, and types of these relations. Additionally, we present TexMo, a prototype of a multi-language development environment, which uses an explicit relation model and implements visualization, static checking, navigation, and refactoring of cross-language relations. We evaluate TexMo by applying it to development of a web-application, JTrac, and provide preliminary evidence of its feasibility by running user tests and interviews. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.