Section: Software

Ensō

Participant : Tijs van der Storm [correspondent] .

Characterization:

A5, SO-4, SM-3-up-4, EM-2-up-4, SDL-4, OC-DA-4-CD-4-MS-4-TPM-4

WWW:

http://www.enso-lang.org

Objective:

Together with Prof. Dr. William R. Cook of the University of Texas at Austin, and Alex Aloh, Tijs van der Storm has been designing and implementing a new programming system, called Ensō. Ensō is theoretically sound and practical reformulation of model-based development. It is based on model-interpretation as opposed to model transformation and code generation. Currently, the system already supports models for schemas (data models), web applications, context-free grammars, diagram editors and security.

Users:

All programmers.

Impact:

Ensō has the potential to revolutionize the activity of programming. By looking at model driven engineering from a completely fresh perspective, with as key ingredients interpreters and partial evaluation, it may make higher level (domain level) program construction and maintenance as effective as normal programming.

Competition:

Ensō competes as a programming paradigm with model driven engineering tools and generic programming and languages that provide syntax macros and language extensions.

Engineering:

Ensō is less than 7000 lines of (bootstrapped) Ruby code.