Program Generators with XML and Java [With CDROM]

by J. Craig Cleaveland

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0130258784
• ISBN13: 9780130258786
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
• Length: 415 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Hits Right Balance

Cleaveland hits just the right balance in his uniquebook on program generators. Just look at the negative reviews.The review by Carpenter whines about not getting enough XMLin his book. Thank God, Cleaveland doesn't wasteour time and money on just learning XML. There areplenty of other books that do that. Cleavelandrightly focuses on how to apply XML to ProgramGenerators. The other negative review, "Soso", whinesabout the exact opposite; that there is too much XML.Again, thank God, Cleaveland doesn't do that either,but rather shows the proper role of XML in thedesign of Program Generators, namely that XML isan abstraction interface for the separation of concernsbetween expressing specificationsand transforming specifications. Kudos toCleaveland for getting it just right!

The ideas in the book are worth exploring

Agreed that XML may not be the best language to capture domainspecification expressiveness. But use of XML/XSLT to docustom code generation has the benifit of rapid applicationprototyping and development. The crucial fact is that thedomain specification is captured in XML only relatively few timesand project software developers mainly use the generated code.The question is how many people in the project is exposedto 'ugliness' of XML and how many times. The advantagesof 'neat' code generation far outweigh the disadvantagesof 'ugliness' of domain specification in XML.In a real Network Management Software development I achieved60% of generated code (EJB, SNMP, Java utilities) by usingcustom code generation by XML/XSLT. Only myself dealt withXML other software developers happily used generated code. Youcan imagine the lead the project had and continues to havebecause of use of XML/XSLT in project specific custom codegeneration. The code generation system is stable now -- any newaddition in EJB, SNMP model results in thousands of lines ofJava/SQL/XML/SVG code without any additional effort.I would, therefore, continue to recommend the book as worthexploring. This book really contributed new techniques insoftware development. More specically with XML/XSLT you havefreely available tools to implement "model driven programming"in your software project.

This book helped me a lot by its novel ideas

Hello,I am interested in code generation and this book helpedme quite a lot. Out of many techniques presented, I liked theuse of XML transform for code generation most. This is reallya relatively easy way of achieving custom code generator inapplication software development projects. I applied thistechnique heavily in our Network Management System projectin the areas of:* EJB code generation* SNMP code generation* Java parametric code generation like C++ template (....)

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.