Duse XVI - external DSLs with Parser Combinators

Hi Scala enthousiasts,

I’m happy to announce our first DUSE meetup in 2012 featuring ‘external DSLs with Parser Combinators’. Tiziano Perrucci will lead us into the world of Parser Combinators, which he used in his former project to create a DSL for testers that was neatly integrated with the Fitnesse testframework.

Starting out with a general introduction to Parser Combinators he will demonstrate how to apply Parser Combinators based on a simple external DSL, touch on how to integrate the DSL in Fitnesse and finally provide hands-on exercises to extend the DSL by ourselves.  All in all a great opportunity to get a solid understanding of how Parser Combinators work and how this powerful DSL technique can be applied in practice.

18:00 - 18:30: Food & Drinks

18:30 – 20:15: Presentation Parser Combinators
Tiziano Perrucci presentation will cover the following parts:

-        Introduction to DSL as natural language interface

-        External DSL built using Scala parser combinators (EBNF notation and context free grammars)

-        Introducing a simple problem/solution domain: the drinking/reaction domain

-        DSL for BDD of our Morning After Check application

-        DSL integration in FitNesse

20:15 – 21:00: Hands-on / Discussion
The last part of the evening will comprise of:

-        Hands-on and practically extending the language (don’t forget to bring your laptop!)

-        Pros/Cons and maintaining the language grammar

-        If there is time left: the DSL as it was used in practice

I’m looking forward to seeing many of you for another inspiring Scala meetup with a challenging subject and the chance to make you hands dirty with code most of us have not written before!

Cheers Urs