OntoDSL: An ontology-based framework for domain-specific languages

Abstract

Domain-specific languages (DSLs) are high-level and should provide abstractions and notations for better understanding and easier modeling of applications of a special domain. Current shortcomings of DSLs include learning curve and formal semantics. This paper reports on a novel approach that allows the use of ontologies to describe DSLs. The formal semantics of OWL together with reasoning services allow for addressing constraint definition, progressive evaluation, suggestions, and debugging. The approach integrates existing metamodels, concrete syntaxes and a query language. A scenario in which domain models for network devices are created illustrates the development environment. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.