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From: abbott@aero.ARPA (Russell J. Abbott)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Application generators
Keywords: application generators
Message-ID: <39048@aero.ARPA>
Date: 6 Oct 88 16:55:51 GMT
Reply-To: abbott@aero.UUCP (Russell J. Abbott)
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Lines: 36


  I'm interested in experiences with and opinions about application
  generators.
  
  I define an application generator as a computer program that has the
  following properties.
  
     1. It encapsulates the semantics of a particular application domain  
        or computational paradigm.
  
     2. It  provides  a  way for "programmers" to tailor, i.e., program, 
        the encapsulated knowledge for the use of "end users."  In  other  
        words it defines both "programming" and "end user" roles.
  
  I'd like to take a broad view of application generators and include, for
  example, spreadsheet systems as application generators.  Spreadsheet
  systems encapsulate a limited version of the computational paradigm of
  constrained arrays of values.  They are used to generate applications
  when "a programmer" encodes, for example, an organizational structure
  (i.e., a set of constraints), which is used by "an end user" who enters
  specific data values.  (Of course the programmer and end user may be the
  same individual, but they need not be.)
  
  I realize that such a broad view allows one to consider general purpose
  programming languages as application generators as well as perhaps any
  interactive system.  My real interest, though, is in application
  generators that provide programming leverage in powerful and interesting
  ways, and it is experiences with these sorts of systems that I'm
  soliciting comments about
  
  I believe that this topic merits open discussion, so I request that
  comments be posted so that others can join in the discussion.
  
  Thanks,
  
  -- Russ Abbott