Re: [m2t-dev] What's the difference between Xpand and Acceleo?

[Cédric Brun <cedric.brun@xxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Just to clarify things so that every developper in M2T has a clear vision :

M2T/Acceleo might invoke any Java code from the template and will -
before the June release - be able to invoke either QVTO helpers and ATL
ones.

http://www.slideshare.net/jmusset/acceleo-mtl-code-generation
http://www.slideshare.net/cbrun/from-acceleoorg-to-eclipse-modeling

About the standards , Acceleo was - at first - a proprietary syntax just
as XPand/Xtend and others, it's now based on a standard but we're
focusing our developments on making sure the standard is not getting in
the way with syntax shortcuts and better tooling. So far we have a great
feedback from the community which was using the non-standard Acceleo and
moving to the new implementation, and keep in mind that the old tooling
was already one of the best.

My conclusion is  : you really need a great tooling support, being able
to refactor template, use quick fixes, navigate everywhere and see
template hierarchy among other features are key - and the good news is
Eclipse is a great platform to provide that.

Cédric

Krzysztof Kowalczyk a écrit :
> Hi,
>
> Another important difference is that Xpand is integrated with
> model-to-model transformation language - Xtend. Thus, Xpand can be
> used for M2M and M2T at the same time. AFAIK Acceleo is not yet
> integrated with QVT and in many problems you need to develop the same
> function twice or even 3 times.
> Xpand has incremental code generation in not yet released version 0.8,
> which is a must in some big projects.
> Acceleo has (at least the old one had) better tracing support.
>
> Xpand is not standard based and because of that it is more productive
> (IMO). It is actually one big integrated family - Xpand (and Xtend),
> MWE (ant-like definition of transformations chain), Xtext(textual DSL)
> - that integrates well.
> Acceleo must follow the standard, Xpand don't. Both have good adoption
> in industry and they differ enough to justify their existence.
>
> If your company uses Acceleo it is not likely that it will be changed,
> so be ready to ask question and provide feedback but you should do
> that on the M2T newsgroup (look for it on eclipse.org) not on the
> developers mailing list.
>
> Unfortunately there are ~6 overlapping M2T languages in Eclipse, 3
> important are in M2T project, and one with the best documentation is
> in Modeling -> GMT -> Epsilon project. GMF is using its own version of
> xpand so it is a bit confusing.
>
> Regards,
> Krzysztof Kowalczyk
>
> On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 1:48 AM, K J <gommery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>   
>> Not sure where I should be posting this question, so I apologize if
>> this isn't the appropriate forum.
>>
>> Some people at my company have been using Acceleo for a while now, and
>> I've been looking for ways to make it play nice with Maven (so far
>> without luck). During my research I came across the M2T project and
>> subsequently Xpand. I've been trying to figure out the differences
>> between Acceleo and Xpand, but I'm not clear on what they each do. It
>> seems like there is a lot of overlap between the two projects, and if
>> that is true, I don't understand why they are both part of M2T. Can
>> someone please clarify?
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
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>>
>>     
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