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Supporting a complex languge [message #1288133]

Tue, 08 April 2014 09:55

Manel Ibáñez

Messages: 3
Registered: April 2014

Junior Member

Hello everybody!

I want to provide Eclipse support for a language I'm designing. It's a game's oriented framework but it is OO and has polymorphism, interfaces, generics, reflection, data type inference, etc. and it resembles Java or C# in some aspects, so it's not a simple language. Could support for this kind of languages be done (without becoming crazy) with xtext?

This language has "modules" which are written in the language itself, so a lot of non-project files will have to be parsed too in order to provide proper code completion, etc.

I would love to be able to provide text coloring, folding and complete autocompletion, which can be a pain to do when datatype inference and generics are involved.

Thanks!

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Re: Supporting a complex languge [message #1288370 is a reply to message #1288133]

Tue, 08 April 2014 13:56

Henrik Lindberg

Messages: 2509
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

On 2014-08-04 14:15, Manel Ibáñez wrote:
> Hello everybody!
>
> I want to provide Eclipse support for a language I'm designing. It's a
> game's oriented framework but it is OO and has polymorphism, interfaces,
> generics, reflection, data type inference, etc. and it resembles Java or
> C# in some aspects, so it's not a simple language. Could support for
> this kind of languages be done (without becoming crazy) with xtext?
>
Yes, compared to the alternatives, and if your language is sane to begin
with.

Take a look at Xtend for an example of a complex language implemented
with Xtext. (Hint, much of that can be reused).

- henrik

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Re: Supporting a complex languge [message #1289348 is a reply to message #1288370]

Wed, 09 April 2014 08:35

Manel Ibáñez

Messages: 3
Registered: April 2014

Junior Member

Thanks for the feedback henrik. Any tips on how to get started? Do I need to download any specific version of Eclipse?
Also, what are the licensing implications of using xtext to develop a custom language plugin for Eclipse? Will I be allowed to distribute commercially the plugin? I would love it to be part of my language commercial compiler and libraries.

Many thanks. I'm sorry if this has been answered before, I couldn't get an answer regarding this on the documentation on the website (maybe didn't look to the right location).

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Re: Supporting a complex languge [message #1289479 is a reply to message #1289348]

Wed, 09 April 2014 11:06

Henrik Lindberg

Messages: 2509
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

On 2014-09-04 10:35, Manel Ibáñez wrote:
> Thanks for the feedback henrik. Any tips on how to get started? Do I
> need to download any specific version of Eclipse?
> Also, what are the licensing implications of using xtext to develop a
> custom language plugin for Eclipse? Will I be allowed to distribute
> commercially the plugin? I would love it to be part of my language
> commercial compiler and libraries.
>
> Many thanks. I'm sorry if this has been answered before, I couldn't get
> an answer regarding this on the documentation on the website (maybe
> didn't look to the right location).

A good starting point is "Implementing Domain Specific Languages with
Xtext and Xtend". Then depending on how much experience you have with
EMF, developing for Eclipse, parsers in general, etc. you need to get
additional literature.

Writing rich support for a language is not a small undertaking.

You can ship commercial things based on Eclipse.

- henrik

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