Engineering Domain-Specific Languages for Games - Game Development Tool Essentials - page 168

Depending on the scope of the domain, it is reasonable that more than one domain expert and language
engineer participate in the language engineering process. Furthermore, the described tasks of a domain expert can be
subdivided into front-end and back-end tasks. This means that there might be a front-end domain expert, for example,
a game writer who leads the identification of the requirements for a branching dialog language. One back-end
domain expert, a programmer of the story engine, covers the design of the intended outcome and further processing,
while another back-end domain expert, a localization manager, determines which information is necessary for voice
recording scripts. The language engineers take this information and synthesize it into a language definition and
corresponding toolset. The basic workflow with the respective role responsibilities is shown in Figure 13-4 .
Figure 13-4. Bottom-up workflow with role responsibilities
DSL Requirements
Led by the domain expert(s), the DSL requirements are determined by domain characteristics, which means that
proper abstractions of the domain need to be found. The domain characteristics should therefore at least comprise
the central domain entities and terms with clearly confined semantics for the given domain. Language engineers
should interpret their role in a predictive, hence moderating, way during this phase in order to create both a sound
domain outline and a solid foundation for the ultimate language design. As the bidirectional relationship between the
DSL requirements and the reference artifacts points out, I propose an iterative process between these two tiers. The
DSL requirements are meant to eventually capture the domain so that both domain experts and language engineers
are aware of the vocabulary, semantics, purpose, scope, and target group of the domain.
What is called “general criteria” can be derived from language engineering principles as listed in Table 13-1 ,
taken from the topic Software Language Engineering by Kleppe, 2009.