Cloud Technologies Automated Tasks with DSL - Mini Project Rubric

Presentation and Submission of Deliverables

All members of the group are working on the project sensibly: exercise marks will be added up and the group mark will correspond to your individual mark. There is no need to report anything.

Members contributed unevenly (e.g., there are team members who did not contribute, etc): please fill in a copy of the contribution helper spreadsheet, stating your individual contributions as explained in

In groups, do the presentation online using Blackboard Collaborate or Microsoft Teams and record it  this video shows how to do it on MS Teams). The presentation can be put together in one single slide deck and a team member can share the screen. Then each team member explains their part as the slides are turned over. Then download the video, check that it has been recorded correctly. Upload it by following the guide to submit a video assignment. The final step is to click on Write Submission and choose the video that must have been uploaded to Panopto previously.

A document explaining your self-evaluation of the work done in the project according to the rubric. For each exercise in the worksheet you should propose a mark and a justification of that mark, according to the rubric, points in the rubric. Please be as specific as possible, giving pointers to examples and slides number/paragraph. You should try to get feedback early during the mini-project focus week and your self-evaluation will be the justification of the mark. Your justification will be checked and, if it is sound, it will be your mark. Otherwise, we will mark the mini-project.

The Gradle project including all software artifacts involved in the project, after executing ./gradlew clean. Please execute this command before zipping contents.

A document explaining where the software artefacts can be located (presentation slides, software artifacts, test files, libraries) in the project folder, how to parse examples and how to compile them, where the results are obtained. Appropriate references to web pages, bibliography or additional resources that have been used need to be made, explaining what parts are reused and what parts are new.

Presentation slides: in the presentation slides: add the username of the presenter in the footnote of each slide used by that presenter.

In case you need to use Contributions spreadsheet should be uploaded using the THE GROUP PREFERENCES FORM.

A more detailed description of what is expected in each exercise, accompanied by the corresponding mark and grade band can be found in the rubric.

Exercise 1: Problem Domain

Coordination of presentation and submission of deliverables. Effort done in working as a team.

Find a problem domain related to cloud technologies or cloud-inpired problems where automation of tasks can bring benefits, usually by generating code from concise scripts written using a DSL. The target code can be used for documenting a system (for example, by producing graphical representations of the system), for implementing (parts of) a system or for testing (parts of) a system, or for simulating a system. Choose an appropriate DSL for that domain from the resources provided below (feel free to do research in a problem domain of your choice).

In the presentation, explain: the aim of the project: the chosen problem domain and the scope of project (the part of the problem domain to be considered). For example: Generation of test cases in Groovy from a Gherkin-like language. The DSL will support definition of features and scenarios with given/when/clause keywords. The skeleton of test cases will be generated using Junit. We are planning to consider advanced features like rules and scenario outlines. The when clause will contain a placeholder for linking the test with an actual implementation, like a call to REST service. the objectives of the project: the tasks to be automated; some examples illustrating examples and potential benefits of such automation with a domain-specific language;

A list of example DSLs that can be used for inspiration or as example can be found in the companion document. The examples illustrate different levels of academic achievement. Also please see the rubric for further information on how the worksheet will be marked.

Find some samples of miniprojects developed in the past below:

A high-level data structure language

A markdown dialect

Model-based testing

A DSL for creating databases

Provide a model of the problem domain, characterising the scope of your DSL. In the presentation, explain:

An enumeration of key concepts and their intrinsic and extrinsic properties.

The metamodel of the DSL capturing those concepts.

The examples shown in Exercise 1 can be modelled using object diagram notation.

In the presentation, explain the design of your DSL, focussing on:

Grammar of your DSL using Xtext notation.

Examples used in Exercises 1 and 2 written using the DSL.

How the tool ecosystem that Xtext generates can help your DSL users (domain experts).

In the presentation, explain the model compiler (or interpreter) that you have built for your low-code development platform by:

Explaining the code patterns used, including the traversal strategy and an outline of code templates.

Showing the code generated from the examples in exercise 3.

How that code can be used, for example by illustrating how the target code is executed or used in third-party tools.

Exercise 5: Critical Analysis and Conclusions (10 marks, max. 2 minutes) Wrap up your presentation with:

Summary of functionality in the current low-code development platform, and current limitations (e.g. known issues, lack of expressivity).

Evaluation performed with examples, either by enumerating the examples used or by describing a test suite.