Product Description

A guide to creating program generators that automate much of the work of software development, using XML and Java. The CD-ROM contains software and other helpful materials for use with the text. System requirements include CD-ROM drive, and Windows 95, 98, NT or 2000. Softcover.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1891916 in Books
• Published on: 2001-02-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

From the Back Cover
The step-by-step guide to creating program generators with Java and XML.

• Breakthrough Java/XML techniques for creating program generators, including detailed examples and real-world guidelines
• Domain engineering techniques for improving software development productivity
• CD-ROM with examples, working code, and relevant XML specifications

"XML isn't just for data any more. Now you can use XML to describe the programs you need, then write a Java program template to generate them automatically. This book shows you how." —Charles F. Goldfarb

Using Java and XML, you can now easily create "wizard-like" program generators that automate much of the work of software development(and deliver significant productivity improvements. In this book, former Bell Laboratories Distinguished Staff Member J. Craig Cleaveland shows you how to do it. Using extensive practical examples, Program Generators with XML and Java walks you through every step:

• Identifying off-the-shelf tools for quickly building program generators
• Domain Analysis: determining the terminology, boundaries, commonalities, and variabilities of software families
• Domain Implementation: processes and tools for efficiently generating customized software
• Accounting for run-time and compile-time variabilities
• Using XML documents as program specifications, and using the DOM and SAX APIs to read and analyze them
• Using JavaServer Pages and XPath/XSLT to generate customized software
• The role of reusable architectures and components, including JavaBeans

Chances are, you're already using automated GUI builders, database application generators, and other code generation "wizards." Now, with Program Generators with XML and Java, you can extend the advantages of code generation throughout your own custom applications and get to market faster, with greater reliability and lower costs.

About the Author

J. CRAIG CLEAVELAND is a technology consultant specializing in Internet applications and domain engineering. As CTO for Internet Games Corporation, he designed and developed a complete Java-based multi-player game network. Previously, he spent a year at Digital Equipment Corporation researching advanced Java technologies. Cleaveland spent 13 years at AT&T Bell Laboratories developing, promoting, and teaching program generator technologies. There, he was honored with the Distinguished Technical Staff Award in 1987.GOLDFARB is the father of markup languages, a term that he coined in 1970. He is the inventor of SGML, the International Standard on which both XML and HTML are based. You can find him on the Web at xmlbooks

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Customer Reviews

Not bad, not bad...
I would have given 4½ stars...

Why do I like this book? The author explains how code generation can be used to separate concerns when programming. He compares program generation to the use of run-time configurations, separation of concerns the way it's done with frameworks, with aspect oriented programming etc. What these technologies have in common is, that they try to figure out what a problem domain is really about - what is common between all applications needed in the domain, and what are the differences. Program Generation is ONE of several possible ways of making the common stuff once, while making 'configuration' of the stuff that varies from app to app as easy as possible.

What I like is he doesn't use a lot of pages explaining the technologies he uses (like most other books do). He expects the reader to know Java and XML - and only includes short resumes(including DOM, XSLT). He shows severel different ways of generating code, explained in an interesting, understandable, babble-free way.

On the down-side, you are sometimes wondering why you are reading what you read - after a while you figure it out. I would have preferred a short introduction to each chapter explaining WHAT it is about, and WHY it is relevant...

excellent book
I have been working on program generators on and off for many years, and just recently completed a project using Java and XML to generate a variety of output files. This book hits on some of the key issues I encountered and provides insight towards solutions to these problems. This book will be a good read for anybody new to writing program generators, and provides useful information even to those who've been doing it.

The ideas in the book are worth exploring
Agreed that XML may not be the best language to capture domain
specification expressiveness. But use of XML/XSLT to do
custom code generation has the benifit of rapid application
prototyping and development. The crucial fact is that the
domain specification is captured in XML only relatively few times
and project software developers mainly use the generated code.
The question is how many people in the project is exposed
to 'ugliness' of XML and how many times. The advantages
of 'neat' code generation far outweigh the disadvantages
of 'ugliness' of domain specification in XML.

In a real Network Management Software development I achieved
60% of generated code (EJB, SNMP, Java utilities) by using
custom code generation by XML/XSLT. Only myself dealt with
XML other software developers happily used generated code. You
can imagine the lead the project had and continues to have
because of use of XML/XSLT in project specific custom code
generation. The code generation system is stable now -- any new
addition in EJB, SNMP model results in thousands of lines of
Java/SQL/XML/SVG code without any additional effort.

I would, therefore, continue to recommend the book as worth
exploring. This book really contributed new techniques in
software development. More specically with XML/XSLT you have
freely available tools to implement "model driven programming"
in your software project.