ATL/User Manual/Additional ATL Resources

ATL developers, beginner as confirmed ones, should find in the present manual answers to most of the problems they may encounter while either programming ATL modules or interacting with the ATL development environment. However, there exist a number of additional ATL resources that provide detailed information on specific aspects of ATL. This section provides the ATL developers with a list of these available ATL resources.

Before starting using the ATL tools, developers are encouraged to consult the ATL Installation Guide [16]. This guide describes the step-by-step procedures corresponding to the different available installation modes (e.g., from source code or binaries).

After having installed ATL for the first time, beginner developers may feel a little bit confused with the different concepts and technologies on which ATL relies on. The ATL Starter’s Guide [12] has been designed for these beginner developers: it presents the step-by-step design of a very simple ATL transformation. It progressively introduces, in this scope, the different functionalities of the ATL IDE.

A number of ATL transformation examples, from varied fields (such as build tools, bug tracking systems, etc.), are available on the GMT web site [17]. This set of transformations illustrates the use of the different ATL capabilities. They can be executed as standalone transformations, but also be integrated in larger transformation chains. Also available from the GMT web site, the Atlantic Zoo provides a collection of more than one hundred metamodels specified by means of the KM3 textual notation. These metamodels can be used for the design of new ATL transformations.

Note that a specific template has been designed to provide a standard scheme for the description of transformations [20]. Developers sharing the transformations they develop are strongly encouraged to use this template to specify their transformations.

Available ATL documentation also includes the specification of the ATL virtual machine [21]. This specification details the set of instructions on which the ATL virtual machine implemented by the ATL IDE is based. It also describes the way the ATL compiler generates the ATL bytecode contained in ASM file from the code specified in .atl files. This specification can be used as a reference for developers that are interested in developing an alternative ATL engine.

The KM3 user manual [14] provides an overview of the Kernel MetaMetaModel language. KM3 is a textual notation dedicated to the specification of metamodels. This user manual describes both the language textual syntax and its semantics.

Finally, there exists an ATL discussion board [22] enabling the ATL community to share information about the ATL language and its dedicated development environment. This board is in particular used to announce the new ATL releases.