CoreLang

CoreLang glossary

Plain explanations of the language and toolchain terms used on this site.

This glossary explains how terms are used on this site. The main pages still introduce technical terms where they first appear.

Business language

A controlled way for people to express concepts, rules, events or relationships from their work. A business language may be textual, visual or form-based and does not always need to execute.

Common base

The proposed syntax, parser conventions and tool connections that suitable business-related languages could reuse or extend. Each language would retain control of its own vocabulary and meaning.

CoreLang

The principal worked business-language example for DomainLang and the proposed common base for suitable related languages. The new CoreLang language and common base have not yet been implemented.

Diagnostic

A message that tells an author what is wrong or incomplete and where to look in the source. For example: This rule sets a deadline but names no responsible team.

Domain

The field of work or knowledge that a language describes. Appointment rebooking is the domain used in the first candidate CoreLang example.

DSLSH

Working middleware that keeps an editor and parser synchronised. It returns parser-based highlighting and error information to the editor; it is not a complete language workbench by itself.

Notation

The visible form that people read or edit, such as text, a table, a form or a diagram.

Parser

Software that reads source text and identifies its structure so that other tools can check and use it.

RXAS

The readable assembly language accepted by the CREXX rxas assembler. A future CoreLang emitter could generate RXAS for a suitable executable example.

RXVM

The CREXX virtual machine that runs assembled or linked bytecode.

Semantic model

A structured record of what statements in a language mean, independent of how they are written or displayed. In the rebooking example, it would distinguish the responsible team, deadline and exception.

THE CREXX Edition

A modernised editor fork that demonstrates CREXX and DSLSH integration. Its browser interface is an experimental proof of concept with documented limits, not a production multi-user editor.

Validation

Checks that decide whether a parsed statement is complete, consistent and allowed by the language or domain.

Related work

What the other projects contribute

  • DomainLang maintains the broader language-design terminology.
  • CREXX, DSLSH and THE remain authoritative for their implemented tools.