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...e the AST, and the concrete syntax is rendered (“projected”) from the changing AST.2 This means that, in addition to text, languages can also use non-parsable notations such as mathematical symbols, tables and diagrams [52]. Since projectional editors never encounter grammar ambiguities, they can support language composition [50]. Traditionally, projectional editors were tedious to use and were hardly adopted in practice. With MPS, in contrast, editing textual syntax is quite close to “normal text editing”. It also supports diffmerge on the level of the projected concrete syntax. The study in [57] shows that users are willing and able to work with the editor after getting used to it. 2.3 C Extensions and mbeddr mbeddr [55] applies projectional editing to embedded software engineering. Built on MPS, it provides an extensible version of C plus a set of predefined extensions such as physical units, interfaces and components, state machines and unit testing. Since extensions are embedded in C programs, users can mix higher-level abstractions with low-level C code. Developers are not forced to use the extensions; they may use them only when they consider them appropriate. mbeddr also suppor...

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...ns can be used. This paper focusses on this aspect. Traditionally, projectional editors have also had disadvantages relative to editor usability and infrastructure integration; those are discussed in =-=[3]-=-. Defining a Simple Editor In order for the reader to better understand the explanations in Sections 3 and 4, this section briefly introduces the MPS structure and editor definitions. MPS’ meta model ...

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...tly reduce the cost of developing complex solutions. For example, several projects based on MPS benefit from reusing languages provided as part of the mbeddr platform 1. Finally, the third challenge is about Editing. This aspect is particularly relevant for projectional editors because they usually require users to part from the traditional textual editing experience. This transition requires significant training and it can be a cause of resistance. By improving the editing experience we can reduce this risk. While the usability of the MPS editors have been previously deemed positive by users [9] we believe is still an aspect which needs to be emphasized. By addressing this particular challenge we aim to prove the progresses of MPS in this area and highlight possible necessary improvements still needed. 1.2 Accessing the examples The examples for these challenges are located in a repository on GitHub 2. To explore the examples, please clone the repository and follow the instructions in the README.md. Many of the challenge items can be demonstrated using examples from the mbeddr platform 3, so we have used them whenever appropriate. We have written models in the mbeddr documentation la...

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...ces anywhere where a language has several user groups or application varieties. Applicability Use the Two-Faced Data pattern when You design a software language and must provide functionality in the entire spectrum from parsing the textual input to advanced semantic consistency validation like type checking. If you make your grammar too close to the desired conceptual representation, you risk making it ambiguous, inecient for parsing and/or not user friendly for the language users. Projectional language workbenches deliberately choose this path due to their naturally powerful IDE support [25,55,56], other approaches are lled with perils, unless they adopt the same techniques [53]. If you make it too close to the desired way of writing and reading sentences in the language, you risk overburdening your traversals and rewritings with unnecessary details concerning a particular textual representation. Solutions without multiple faces usually include conventions that allow to use one representation to mean multiple things at once [28, 54] (e.g., using layout for pretty-printing but ignoring it for parsing/matching). You want your software language to have both textual and visual concr...

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...shows how the two spaces may mutally benefi fr m each other: sho tcomings of one space may be addressed by adopting solutions known in the other space. 51 4.24 VolterSBK14 VolterSBK14 – Data Citation =-=[33]-=- Title Towards User-Friendly Projectional Editors Online URL http://mbeddr.com/files/projectionalEditing-sle2014.pdf Required concepts parsing, IDE Provided concepts projectional editing Annotation Th...