Live programming brings code to life with immediate and continuous feedback. To enjoy its benefits, programmers need powerful languages and live programming environments for understanding the effects of coding actions and developing running programs. Unfortunately, the enabling technology that powers these languages is missing. Change, a crucial enabler for explorative coding, omniscient debugging and version control, is a potential solution. In this position paper, we argue that an explicit representation of change is instrumental for how these languages are built, and that cause-and-effect relationships are vital for more precise feedback. We aim to deliver generic solutions for creating these languages. We introduce Cascade, a meta-language and framework for expressing languages with interface- and feedback-mechanisms that drive live programming. Our preliminary results show Cascade is a promising approach that simplifies developing language back-ends.

Riemer van Rozen is a lecturer and researcher at the Software Analysis and Transformation group of Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI). Since 2011, he has collaborated with industry in several applied research projects on languages and tools that speed up development and improve software quality. His research focuses on generic solutions for domain-specific languages and live programming environments in general, and automated game design in particular. PhD Dissertation: R.A. van Rozen. “Languages of Games and Play: Automating Game Design & Enabling Live Programming”, University of Amsterdam, Feb 2020. link.