Workbench for Creating Block-Based Environments

Mauricio Verano Merino; Koen Van Wijk

doi:10.1145/3567512.3567518

Workbench for Creating Block-Based Environments

Research output: Chapter in Book / Report / Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Block-based environments are visual-programming environments that allow users to create programs by dragging and dropping blocks that resemble jigsaw puzzle pieces. These environments have proven to lower the entry barrier of programming for end-users. Besides using block-based environments for programming, they can also help edit popular semi-structured data languages such as JSON and YAML. However, creating new block-based environments is still challenging; developers can develop them in an ad-hoc way or using context-free grammars in a language workbench. Given the visual nature of block-based environments, both options are valid; however, developers have some limitations when describing them. In this paper, we present Blocklybench, which is a meta-block-based environment for describing block-based environments for both programming and semi-structured data languages. This tool allows developers to express the specific elements of block-based environments using the blocks notation. To evaluate Blocklybench, we present three case studies. Our results show that Blocklybench allows developers to describe block-based specific aspects of language constructs such as layout, color, block connections, and code generators.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	SLE 2022: Proceedings of the 15th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering
Editors	Bernd Fischer, Lola Burgueno, Walter Cazzola
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages	61-73
Number of pages	13
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450399197
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3567512.3567518
Publication status	Published - 1 Dec 2022
Event	15th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering, SLE 2022, co-located with the ACM SIGPLAN conference on Systems, Programming, Languages, and Applications. SPLASH 2022 - Auckland, New Zealand Duration: 6 Dec 2022 → 7 Dec 2022

Conference

Conference	15th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering, SLE 2022, co-located with the ACM SIGPLAN conference on Systems, Programming, Languages, and Applications. SPLASH 2022
Country/Territory	New Zealand
City	Auckland
Period	6/12/22 → 7/12/22

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Owner/Author.

Keywords

block-based environments
Blockly
data languages
IDEs
Projectional editors
visual languages

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1145/3567512.3567518

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title = "Workbench for Creating Block-Based Environments",

abstract = "Block-based environments are visual-programming environments that allow users to create programs by dragging and dropping blocks that resemble jigsaw puzzle pieces. These environments have proven to lower the entry barrier of programming for end-users. Besides using block-based environments for programming, they can also help edit popular semi-structured data languages such as JSON and YAML. However, creating new block-based environments is still challenging; developers can develop them in an ad-hoc way or using context-free grammars in a language workbench. Given the visual nature of block-based environments, both options are valid; however, developers have some limitations when describing them. In this paper, we present Blocklybench, which is a meta-block-based environment for describing block-based environments for both programming and semi-structured data languages. This tool allows developers to express the specific elements of block-based environments using the blocks notation. To evaluate Blocklybench, we present three case studies. Our results show that Blocklybench allows developers to describe block-based specific aspects of language constructs such as layout, color, block connections, and code generators.",

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Verano Merino, M & Van Wijk, K 2022, Workbench for Creating Block-Based Environments. in B Fischer, L Burgueno & W Cazzola (eds), SLE 2022: Proceedings of the 15th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, pp. 61-73, 15th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering, SLE 2022, co-located with the ACM SIGPLAN conference on Systems, Programming, Languages, and Applications. SPLASH 2022, Auckland, New Zealand, 6/12/22. https://doi.org/10.1145/3567512.3567518

Workbench for Creating Block-Based Environments. / Verano Merino, Mauricio; Van Wijk, Koen.
SLE 2022: Proceedings of the 15th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering. ed. / Bernd Fischer; Lola Burgueno; Walter Cazzola. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 2022. p. 61-73.

Research output: Chapter in Book / Report / Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

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T1 - Workbench for Creating Block-Based Environments

AU - Verano Merino, Mauricio

AU - Van Wijk, Koen

PY - 2022/12/1

Y1 - 2022/12/1

N2 - Block-based environments are visual-programming environments that allow users to create programs by dragging and dropping blocks that resemble jigsaw puzzle pieces. These environments have proven to lower the entry barrier of programming for end-users. Besides using block-based environments for programming, they can also help edit popular semi-structured data languages such as JSON and YAML. However, creating new block-based environments is still challenging; developers can develop them in an ad-hoc way or using context-free grammars in a language workbench. Given the visual nature of block-based environments, both options are valid; however, developers have some limitations when describing them. In this paper, we present Blocklybench, which is a meta-block-based environment for describing block-based environments for both programming and semi-structured data languages. This tool allows developers to express the specific elements of block-based environments using the blocks notation. To evaluate Blocklybench, we present three case studies. Our results show that Blocklybench allows developers to describe block-based specific aspects of language constructs such as layout, color, block connections, and code generators.

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Y2 - 6 December 2022 through 7 December 2022

ER -

Workbench for Creating Block-Based Environments

Abstract

Conference

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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Cite this