ADL Workbench - 02 April 2008 Release - What's New?

Specialisation Semantics

The workbench now works using two kinds of files: differential 'source' files (.adls extension) and flat files (.adl extension). Previously, .adl files were treated as the source of all archetypes. However, they are not an appropriate source form representation for specialised archetypes. Instead, a differential representation is used, rather like specialised classes in object oriented programming languages. The consequences of this change are as follows:

specialised archetypes will be far more sustainable to author, as they will no longer contain copies of structural parts inherited from parent archetypes;
there are now two kinds of files:

.adls file: this will become the 'source' file type for all archetypes.
.adl file: this will become the file type for the 'flat' view of an archetype. In the future, .adl files will no longer be stored, but will be generated on the fly.

for existing archetype repositories consisting of .adl files, the .adl file will be treated as the initial source. A .adls file will be generated once only for each .adl file, and from then on, the .adls file will be used as the source.

The first time the an existing .adl file is compiled, a new .adls file will be created. All subsequent compilations will use the .adls file. The .adls files can be removed using the 'Clean Generated Files' option on the Tools menu

Compiler Mode of Operation

The Archetype workbench now functions as a compiler over the entire archteype 'directory' (the merged result of the reference and work repositories). With a single command (F7; build repository), all archetypes are compiled, and an error report built up which can be perused at any time. Slot relationships between archetypes are now shown, as are statistics for the repositories. See the compiler page for specifics.

Status of Tooling

Currently the tooling implements most but not all aspects of archetype specialisation. Some further small changes are needed to complete the semantics, including being able to specify ordering of branches in specialised archetypes, and various kinds of specialisations such as slots.

The current release of the tool will not overwrite any .adl files, it will just silently create .adls files. These can be removed via the 'Clean Generated Files' option on the Tools menu.