SAFARI: A meta-tooling framework for generating language-specific IDE's

Abstract

Getting a new programming language into the hands of users is still a huge undertaking. SAFARI is an Eclipse-based meta-tooling framework for generating language-specific IDEs that greatly accelerates that process. It exploits common themes and structures that recur in many languages and language tools. It supports the generation of language-dependent IDE services, while allowing developers to focus on the language-specific aspects of their environments rather than the surrounding IDE framework. SAFARI has been used to generate IDEs for several languages. These IDEs include such features as parser generation; editors with keyword highlighting, text folding, text completion, hyperlinking and so on; outline views, project building; and more.