Enso Introduction

I know that this is just a teaser, but it is the introduction of the paper on Ensō that Tijs and I are writing. If you want to know more or see the code, let me know.

Ensō is a theoretically sound and practical reformulation of the concepts of model-driven software development. Ensō is based on first-class structural descriptions, invertable transformations, generic operations and interpretation.

Structures in Ensō are a specialized kind of graph, whose nodes are either primitive data or collections of observable properties, whose values are either nodes or collections of nodes. From a programming language viewpoint this may seem an odd choice for data representation. However, it is essentially the Entity-Relationship (ER) model, also known as Information Models, which is widely used in the design of relational databases and is also the basis for Class Diagrams in the Unified Modeling Language (UML), which describe the structure of networks of objects. The key point is that structures in Ensō are viewed holistically as graphs, not as individual values or traditional sums-and-products data structures.

A structural description, or schema, specifies some of the observable properties of structures. Schemas are used to check the consistency structures. Some properties can be checked while the structure is being created, but other can only be checked once the structure is complete. Ensō allows modification of structures, which is necessary to create cyclic graphs, but also allows valid structures to be sealed to prevent further changes.

Invertible transformations are used to map one structure into another kind of structure, such that mapping can be inverted to (partially) recover the original structure from the result. One common kind of transformation is called a grammar, which is an invertible transformation between structures and text. Text grammars are invertable because they can be used for parsing and also rendering. Other transformations include Diagram grammars, which map structures into diagrams, were edits on the diagram are reflected in the original structure. Grammars that describe the structure and behavior of user interfaces are used to generate very natural applications. Transformations are also used for querying, template processing, and serialization.

Operations can be guided by schemas or grammars, allowing highly generic operations to be defined for comparison, differencing, merging, projecting and otherwise manipulating cyclic structures. These operations are cyclic maps, which correspond to coinductive transformations. Since schemas and transformations are also structures, they can be merged and transformed using these same generic operations. Transformations on schemas can be applied to instances, to support upgrade and change management of data. The resulting system supports powerful modularity constructs, including feature modules, inheritance, and mixins.

Ensō is based on interpretation rather than code generation. While it is possible to define transformations that generate code in conventional languages, this is rarely (if ever) done in Ensō. Instead all structural descriptions and transformations are interpreted dynamically. Although the current incarnation of Ensō does not include it, we have previously demonstrated that partial evaluation can be applied to Ensō-style interpreters to automatically generate efficient code.