Adding a language construct

Revision as of 06:09, 6 March 2009 by Bmeyer (Talk | contribs)

Checklist for adding a language construct to EiffelStudio (order not particularly significant).

Announce the change so that others know what's happening!
Check ISO/ECMA standard, work of ECMA committee
If this is an experimental change, make sure there is a clear rationale available for consultation.
Lexical changes
Syntax changes: parser
New validity rules and their four-letter codes, or modifications (including additions) to existing validity rules
Type checking
Changes to AST structure (Abstract Syntax Tree)
Code generation
Runtime support:
- introspection and reflection
- conformance
- catcall detection
- storable facilities (serialization)
Serialization again: any problem with retrieving existing "storables"
Editor support
Automatic completion (also in editor)
New icons (or modified existing icons) associated with the new construct
Debugger
Metrics tool
Testing Framework
EiffelStudio views: what survives of the new construct in the Contract View and others?
Effect on external code; in particular, how will the new construct appear to the via external features, CECIL, .NET, external features?
Documentation update, in particular
Examples of use, covering both basic and advanced usage, and integrated into the regression test suite for the compiler (EiffelWeasel)
Diagram tool (including: what are the BON and UML notations for the new construct)?

Original version from material by Alexander Kogtenkov and Bertrand Meyer