[news.eclipse.technology.ldt] Re: Beyond textual represenations...

[Guillaume Pothier <gpothier@xxxxxxx>]

> I'm a bit puzzled why do you use term "AST". "AST" assumes that there is 
> a syntax to parse and that there may be a concrete syntax tree. I 
> suggest to use the word "model". This naturally moves this discussion to 
> EMF group and GMF group. EMF is already a ready "AST framework" and 
> solves problem for non-textual representations.

You are right, "model" is much more representative of what I am thinking 
of than AST, which is more restrictive.
Regarding EMF, here is my understanding of the framework, correct me if 
I'm wrong:
- it provides a structural model of OO apps quite similar to UML, 
hardcoding the notion of class, method, inheritance, etc.
- it generates Java (only) source code for this structural model
- it cannot represent application logic (ie. method bodies) except for 
the structural aspects defined in the model (getters, setters...)

Overall, I don't think it is a good fit for LDT, at least in its current 
form. It looks more like a framework for authoring structural models of 
 Java applications, than a framework that enables authoring of language 
models and their implementations (ie. tooling, inculding compiler, 
editors etc), which is what I feel LDT should be...
However, I don't doubt that they have a good infrastructure for 
persisting and managing their models, and the creation of the GMF 
project is exciting. But they both seem tied to Java or Java-like 
languages, and at least to OOP...
I feel that LDT should go beyond that. I hope it will.


> BTW I would like to see something like the ModelDOM componet in LDT. 
> This component would do the following components:
> - Support IDocument-related interfaces (possibly Webtool SSE based)
> - Have one-to-one mapping to soruce (So it is a concrete syntax tree 
> rather than AST)
> - Ingegrates parsers/reparsers
> - Maintains mapping to EMF-based AST of source code

Sorry not to be that knowledgeable, what is ModelDOM? Part of EMF?

Regards,
Guillaume