Domain-specific languages for service-oriented architectures: An explorative study

Abstract

Domain-specific languages (DSLs) are an important software development approach for many service-oriented architectures (SOAs). They promise to model the various SOA concerns in a suitable way for the various technical and non-technical stakeholders of a SOA. However, so far the research on SOA DSLs concentrates on novel technical contributions, and not much evidence or counter-evidence for the claims associated to SOA DSLs has been provided. In this paper, we present a qualitative, explorative study that provides an initial analysis of a number of such claims through a series of three prototyping experiments in which each experiment has developed, analyzed, and compared a set of DSLs for process-driven SOAs. Our result is to provide initial evidence for a number of popular claims about SOA DSLs which follow the model-driven software development (MDSD) approach, as well as a list of design trade-offs to be considered in the design decisions that must be made when developing a SOA DSL. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.