The Linguistic Theory Behind Blockly Languages
The dominant linguistic theory for specifying the syntax of software languages is Chomsky’s phrase-structure grammar. However, for graphical block languages (such as Scratch and other languages defined using Google’s Blockly library), we note that a different linguistic theory provides a better fitting model: the theory of dependency grammar. Indeed, as we make clear, there is a close, almost one-to-one correspondence between the specifications of graphical syntax required by Blockly and a classic capture of dependency grammar, which can be perfected by making only small extensions that remain entirely within the linguistic context. Taking the identified correspondence further suggests how Blockly languages can become context-sensitive, a requirement of many software languages that so far, Blockly addresses only in ad hoc ways.
Sun 20 OctDisplayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change
16:00 - 17:30 | SLE Body of Knowledge (SLEBoK)SLE at IBR East Chair(s): Eric Van Wyk Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota | ||
16:00 30mTalk | DSLs in Racket: You Want It How, Now? SLE Yunjeong Lee National University of Singapore, Kiran Gopinathan National University of Singapore, Ziyi Yang National University of Singapore, Matthew Flatt University of Utah, Ilya Sergey National University of Singapore DOI | ||
16:30 30mTalk | Design of Software Representation Languages: a Historical Perspective SLE Anthony I. (Tony) Wasserman Software Methods and Tools DOI | ||
17:00 30mTalk | The Linguistic Theory Behind Blockly Languages SLE DOI |