Peter D. Mosses. Modular Language Descriptions. In Gabor Karsai, Eelco Visser, editors, Generative Programming and Component Engineering: Third International Conference, GPCE 2004, Vancouver, Canada, October 24-28, 2004. Proceedings. Volume 3286 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 489, Springer, 2004. [doi]
Formal semantic descriptions of full-scale programming languages can be notoriously difficult to write, as well as to read. Writing a description of a language usually starts from scratch: reuse from previous language descriptions requires first locating a relevant one, then manually copying bits of it – perhaps with extensive reformulation. Semantic descriptions are often intricate and intimidating documents to read, requiring a good grasp of the formalism used, as well an understanding of the interplay between the parts of the description concerned with different language constructs. Evolution of semantic descriptions, to cope with small changes or extensions to the described language, may require global reformulation.