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Conference Paper
Barišić, A., V. Amaral, M. Goulão, and B. Barroca, "Quality in Use of Domain Specific Languages: a Case Study", 3rd ACM SIGPLAN workshop on Evaluation and Usability of Programming Languages and Tools (PLATEAU 2011), Portland, USA, ACM, pp. 65-72, 2011. Abstract

http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2089155.2089170

plateau2011-barisic.pdf

Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) are claimed to increment productivity, while reducing the required maintenance and programming expertise. In this context, DSLs usability is a key factor for its successful adoption.

In this paper, we propose a systematic approach based on User Interfaces Experimental validation techniques to assess the impact of the introduction of DSLs on the productivity of domain experts. To illustrate this evaluation approach we present a case study of a DSL for High Energy Physics (HEP).

The DSL on this case study, called Pheasant (PHysicist’s EAsy Analysis Tool), is assessed in contrast with a pre-existing baseline, using General Purpose Languages (GPLs) such as C++. The comparison combines quantitative and qualitative data, collected with users from a real-world setting. Our assessment includes Physicists with programming experience with two profiles; ones with no experience with the previous framework used in the project and other experienced.

This work’s contribution highlights the problem of the absence of systematic approaches for experimental validation of DSLs. It also illustrates how an experimental approach can be used in the context of a DSL evaluation during the Software Languages Engineering activity, with respect to its impact on effectiveness and efficiency.

Barišić, A., V. Amaral, M. Goulão, and B. Barroca, "Quality in Use of DSLs: Current Evaluation Methods", 3rd INForum - Simpósio de Informática (INForum2011), Coimbra, Portugal, 8-9 Sep., 2011. Abstractinforum_2011_submission_174.pdf

Domain Speci c Languages (DSLs) are claimed to contribute
to increment productivity, while reducing the required maintenance and
programming expertise. In this context, the usability of these languages
becomes a major issue: if the language is not easy to learn and use, it is
unlikely to be successfully adopted.

It is important to foster high quality DSLs during its engineering process.
We argue that a systematic approach based on User Interface Experi-
mental validation techniques should be used to assess the impact of the
introduction of DSLs in the productivity of DSL user. Productivity can
be fostered by assessing important usability attributes early in the lan-
guage construction . This work's contribution, besides highlighting the
problem of the absence of systematic approaches for experimental vali-
dation of DSLs in general, is to identify existing evaluation approaches
that can be adapted from the eld of User Interfaces.

Goulão, M., and F. B. Abreu, "The quest for software components quality", 26th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC 2002), Oxford, England, IEEE Computer Society, pp. 313-318, 2002. Abstract

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Journal Article
Goulão, M., V. Amaral, and M. Mernik, "Quality in model-driven engineering: a tertiary study", Software Quality Journal, vol. 24, issue 3, pp. 601-633, 2016. Abstract

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11219-016-9324-8

Website

Model-driven engineering (MDE) is believed to have a significant impact in software quality. However, researchers and practitioners may have a hard time locating consolidated evidence on this impact, as the available information is scattered in several different publications. Our goal is to aggregate consolidated findings on quality in MDE, facilitating the work of researchers and practitioners in learning about the coverage and main findings of existing work as well as identifying relatively unexplored niches of research that need further attention. We performed a tertiary study on quality in MDE, in order to gain a better understanding of its most prominent findings and existing challenges, as reported in the literature. We identified 22 systematic literature reviews and mapping studies and the most relevant quality attributes addressed by each of those studies, in the context of MDE. Maintainability is clearly the most often studied and reported quality attribute impacted by MDE. Eighty out of 83 research questions in the selected secondary studies have a structure that is more often associated with mapping existing research than with answering more concrete research questions (e.g., comparing two alternative MDE approaches with respect to their impact on a specific quality attribute). We briefly outline the main contributions of each of the selected literature reviews. In the collected studies, we observed a broad coverage of software product quality, although frequently accompanied by notes on how much more empirical research is needed to further validate existing claims. Relatively, little attention seems to be devoted to the impact of MDE on the quality in use of products developed using MDE.