DSLs for improving old software
What to do when a legacy system becomes too expensive to maintain or to add new functionality? Rebuilding the leagcy system from scratch will be expensive, error-prone and maintenance-intensive.
Domain knowledge forms the foundation of the Swat.engineering Methodology for legacy systems:
Our first step is to deeply explore all knowledge we can collect about the system, ranging from interviews with developers to automatic analysis of source code and documentation. The result will be a map of all the concepts and their relationships that are implicit in the system.
Based on this insight questions can be asked and next steps can be planned. What are the components of the system and how do they interact? What is the quality of each component? How could replacements be staged?
One approach is to automatically transform parts of the legacy based on the acquired domain knowledge.
Another approach that can be applied to many of the components is to design a domain-specific language (DSL). A DSL captures the domain knowledge and allows to flexibly express desired functionality. Using this DSL, the functionality of the software components to be replaced can be described concisely. These component descriptions are at a high level and can be understood and reviewed by experts from other disciplines such as marketing, finance, legal and auditing.
These high-level descriptions are used for simulation, visualisation, validation, and code generation.
The net effect: gained insight in your software and the components that were in most need of replacement have been reimplemented with future-proof technology.
Contact us at [email protected] to discuss your specific situation.
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DSLs for building new software
Most IT systems consist of closely interacting software components (applications/tools) that solve related problems in the same domain. Many components are based on the same domain elements.
In the banking domain this would include account, client, and interest rate. In the forensics domain file format and encryption would be prominent.
Building each software component from scratch will be expensive, error-prone and maintenance-intensive.
Using domain knowledge is the solution to these problems and it forms the centerpiece of the Swat.
DSLs for improving old software
What to do when a legacy system becomes too expensive to maintain or to add new functionality? Rebuilding the leagcy system from scratch will be expensive, error-prone and maintenance-intensive.
Domain knowledge forms the foundation of the Swat.engineering Methodology for legacy systems:
Our first step is to deeply explore all knowledge we can collect about the system, ranging from interviews with developers to automatic analysis of source code and documentation. The result will be a map of all the concepts and their relationships that are implicit in the system.