Development and instantiation of a generic application generator
Abstract Application generators are well known in the information systems domain as tools that increase productivity in the software development process. This work discusses the development of application generators for nonconventional innovative applications in other domains. Following a brief overview of application generators, generic architectures for application generators are proposed that comprise two main categories: single domain — single application (SDSA) application generators and multiple domains — multiple applications (MDMA) application generators. Existing generators are then classified according to this model; the majority fall into the SDSA category. We then report the development of an MDMA generator named DAIGE which is instantiated to generate an SDSA application generator. This instantiated application generator — statechart simulator generator — accepts as input a statechart specification and generates a program to simulate it.