Can I use JetBrains MPS in a web application?

Question

I am developing a small web application with Flask. This application needs a DSL, which can express the content of .pdf files.

I have developed a DSL with JetBrains MPS but now I'm not sure how to use it in my web application. Is it possible? Or should I consider to switch to another DSL or make my DSL directly in Python.

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 10 '18 at 06:25

If you want to use MPS in the web frontend the simple answer is: no.

Since MPS is a projectional editor it needs a projection engine so that user can interact with the program/model. The projection engine of MPS is build in Java for desktop applications. There have been some efforts to put MPS on the web and build Java Script/HTML projection engine but none of the work is complete. So unless you would build something like that there is no way to use MPS in the frontend.

If your DSL is textual anyway and doesn't leverage the projectional nature of MPS I would go down the text DSL road with specialised tooling for that e.g. python as you suggested or Xtext.

There are now plans to develop a web based projectional editor: https://blog.jetbrains.com/mps/2021/02/webmps-faq/ Seems to be quite a bit away from release as of 2021-03 — Maccesch, Mar 08 '21 at 18:03

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 09 '18 at 09:11

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I thought I'd make a recommendation if you decide to go down the DSL in python route.
TextX is a good DSL creation library, supports BNF grammars and uses a PEG parser.

answered Aug 09 '18 at 09:11

SerialDev

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Thanks, looks good at first sight. Did you ever use TextX? Would you recommend it in an web application? – Rick Grimes Aug 09 '18 at 09:20
Yes I have used textx once in the past, it was quite nice to work with. You should have no problems using it with flask since its pure python. – SerialDev Aug 09 '18 at 09:21
Will give it a try. Thank you :) – Rick Grimes Aug 09 '18 at 09:28

Can I use JetBrains MPS in a web application?

2 Answers2