What are the major tools for DSL construction?

Question

I know there's support for design and creation of domain-specific languages in VS 2008, then there's the Meta Programming System from Jetbrains. Are there any other major tools in this arena? What are the most used tools for DSL construction?

Answer 1

Have a look at Boost.Proto, which looks quite promising for the creation of DSEL. I don't have any experience with it, though.

Answer 2

I'd say the eclipse is the leading provider of DSL related tools.

See the eclipse project list and pick what you need - you'll probably be most interested in the modelling project but some of the other technology projects might be very interesting to you as well (even if its not evident from their names).

For a gentle introduction to what you might find interesting see:

• Eclipse Modeling Project as a DSL Toolkit

• From Front End To Code - MDSD in Practice

• Build your own textual DSL with Tools from the Eclipse Modeling Project

Also see the (eclipse related) openArchitectureWare project.

Answer 3

At this year's PDC, Microsoft revealed a lot of information about their upcoming Oslo platform which is all about DSLs. You can go to the PDC website and download some of the Oslo sessions or listen to some of the great .NET Rocks podcasts on the topic. If you need a technology which is actually in production you're out of luck on this one, though.