Xtext/Reviews/Juno

This page provides the required docuware for the Xtext 2.3 Release Review, as part of the upcoming Juno Simultaneous Release.

Overview

With Xtext you can easily create your own programming languages and domain-specific languages (DSLs). The framework supports the development of language infrastructures including compilers and interpreters as well as full blown Eclipse-based IDE integration. While Xtext equips you with a set of sensible defaults, you can tweak every single aspect of your language with Xtext's powerful APIs. A comprehensive documentation as well as the vivid community will help you getting started in no time. And if that is not enough you can buy trainings, consulting or support contracts delivered directly by the committers.

Features

Syntax Highlighting

Out of the box, the editor supports syntax coloring based on the lexical structure and the semantic data of your files. Users are free to customize the highlighting and configure their favorite styles.

Code Completion

An Xtext editor proposes valid code completions at any place in the document, helping your users with the syntactical details of your language.

Validation and Quick Fixes

Xtext has outstanding support for static analysis and validation of your models. It has never been so easy to define constraints to tackle errors and warnings in your code instantaneously. With custom Quick Fixes you can correct these with a single keystroke.

More Editor Features

You'll find all the editor features that you got used to in your favorite IDE in the editor for your very own language. There is bracket matching and auto-edit, an outline that shows the semantic structure of your model, code formatting to properly indent the documents and much more.

Advanced Workbench Integration

Xtext's advanced Eclipse integration goes far beyond the editor. You will not feel any difference between your language and Java.

Integration with EMF

Xtext tightly integrates with EMF: You can combine it with a plethora of other EMF-based tools, e.g. for mixed graphical and textual modeling.

New in this release

• Reworked Rename-Refactoring
• Many enhancements for Java-based DSLs (Xbase)
• Restructuring: The programming language Xtend has been moved to its own project under Eclipse Tools
• Significant performance improvements

See http://www.eclipse.org/Xtext/documentation/juno/new_and_noteworthy.php

Accordance with project plan themes and priorities

See http://www.eclipse.org/projects/project-plan.php?projectid=modeling.tmf.xtext

Non-Code Aspects

• New overhauled examples
• Extensive documentation

APIs

APIs have not changed in this release.

• The project lead certifies that the requirements for Eclipse Quality APIs have been met for this release.
• Non-API in is marked as “internal”

Architecture

No change.

Tool Usability

Sample tools haven't changed.

End-of-Life

Nothing has been deprecated.

Bugzilla

Bugzilla snapshot for Indigo as of June 1st, 2011.

Standards

No standards.

UI Usability

• Xtext 2.3 conforms to Eclipse User Interface Guidelines
• Eclipse platform standard i18n support used where applicable/possible; stand-alone deployment uses equivalent J2SE APIs
• ICU4J is used

Schedule

Xtext is a “+2” project in the simultaneous release.

• M2 09/30/2011
• M3 11/11/2011 (2.1.0 Release)
• M4 12/16/2011 (2.2.0 Release)
• M5 02/03/2012
• M6 03/23/2012 API freeze
• M7 05/11/2012
• RC1 05/25/2012
• RC2 06/01/2012
• RC3 06/08/2012
• RC4 06/15/2012
• 2.3.0 Final 06/27/2012

Communities

• Interaction in Bugzilla
• Activity on the newsgroup
• Collaboration with other projects at Eclipse

Committer Changes

No change.

IP Issues

The Xtext project leadership verifies that:

• the about files and use licenses are in place as per the Guidelines to Legal Documentation.
• all contributions (code, documentation, images, etc) have been committed by individuals who are either Members of the Foundation, or have signed the appropriate Committer Agreement. In either case, these are individuals who have signed, and are abiding by, the Eclipse IP Policy.
• all significant contributions have been reviewed by the Foundation's legal staff.
• all non-Committer code contributions, including third-party libraries, have been documented in the release and reviewed by the Foundation's legal staff.
• all Contribution Questionnaires have been completed.
• the "provider" field of each plug-in is set to "Eclipse Modeling Project“.
• the "copyright" field of each feature is set to the copyright owner (the Eclipse Foundation is rarely the copyright owner).
• any third-party logos or trademarks included in the distribution (icons, help file logos, etc) have been licensed under the EPL.
• any fonts or similar third-party images included in the distribution (e.g. in PDF or EPS files) have been licensed under the EPL.

The approved Xtext project IP log is located at https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=380471.

Project Plan

The current project plan is available from http://www.eclipse.org/projects/project-plan.php?projectid=modeling.tmf.xtext.

Draft development plan for Xtext 2.4 is not yet available.