View source for M2T/MTL Relaunch Plan

[[Category:M2T]]

==Status==

The [[MTL]] relaunch plan has been accepted. The project will be named [[Acceleo]].

* [http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/m2t/?project=acceleo Acceleo project page]
* [http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.modeling.m2t M2T newsgroup] (please include "[Acceleo]" in the message subject)

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== Introduction ==
The '''[[MTL]] component''' is an open source component under the [[EMF|Eclipse Modeling]] / Model To Text
([[M2T]]) project<ref>Eclipse [http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/m2t/ Model To Text (M2T) project]</ref>. Its primary goal is to provide an implementation of the [[Mof2Text|MOF 2 Text]] [[OMG]]]
standard<ref>OMG [http://www.omg.org/docs/ptc/07-08-16.pdf MOF Models to Text Transformation] Language Final Adopted Specification, OMG
document ptc/07-08-16</ref>.

This proposal is written to declare its intent and scope.

== Background ==
The Eclipse [[M2T]] project aims at developing Model To Text tools and to reduce the duplicate effort
involved in developing and maintaining template languages. Currently, there are three languages
components within M2T : [[JET]], [[Xpand]] and [[MTL]] being the [[OMG]] [[MOF]] [[Mof2Text|Model to Text]]
implementation.

== Description ==
This document focuses on proposing an implementation as an entirely new development of the
OMG MOF Model to Text ([[Mof2Text]]) language. The implementation will be compliant with the
core feature compliance level of the Mof2Text language to start with, then with the advanced
feature compliance.

=== Proposed components ===
* Standalone components (based on EMF Runtime)
** Engine: The engine will generate text based on the reflective API of EMF
** Parser : the compiler creates a EMF representation of the template
* Eclipse IDE components
** Eclipse Builder with error detection and error marking
** Template editor with code completion and syntax highlighting
** Export a generator as a plugin wizard
** Debugger

=== Reused components ===
The Eclipse MTL will be built on top of the Eclipse Platform. EMF will be used for accessing the
models by the MTL execution engine and the MTL component will be integrated with the [[MWE|Model
Workflow Engine (MWE)]]. It will also participate in building and/or reusing some of the M2T
common components like M2T-core and M2T-shared.

The MDT-OCL component will be reused to edit and parse [[OCL]] as a sub-language of MTL. It will
also be used to interpret OCL by the MTL runtime engine. Reuse of the Eclipse IMP component
(http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/imp/) will be considered at the beginning of the project.

The team is composed of the creators and contributors of the [[Acceleo]] code generator project
(http://www.acceleo.org) and of contributors of [[Mof2Text|MOF 2 Text]] and [[QVT-R]] OMG specifications. No
initial contribution will be made for MTL since this will be an entirely new development. The team
will re-use its knowledge to build an exemplary implementation of the OMG MOF To Text
standard.

== Proposed initial committers ==
* Jonathan Musset – jonathan.musset@obeo.fr - (proposed project lead)
* Arjan Kok - arjan.kok@gmail.com
* Wim Bast - wim.bast@xs4all.nl
* Cedric Brun – cedric.brun@obeo.fr
* Laurent Goubet – laurent.goubet@obeo.fr

== Interested parties ==
* Obeo
* IBM - Ed Merks
* IBM - Paul Elder
* Borland - Rich Gronback
* Bernd Kolb
* CEA List - France
* TATA Consultancy Services (TCS) - Sreedhar Reddy
* modeldriven.org - Cory Casanava
* Arno Haase

== Tentative Plan ==
MTL 1.0 planned for June 2009 including standalone engine and parser, first MTL syntax support,
(core feature compliance level of the [[Mof2Text]] language) Eclipse IDE components [[MWE]]
integration and documentation.

In the meantime, component opening is planned for January 2008, and standalone engine will be
available by June 2008.

== References ==

<references />