PIE: A Domain-Specific Language for Interactive Software Development Pipelines

TL;DR

PIE is a domain-specific language and runtime designed to simplify the development of interactive software development pipelines, enabling low-latency feedback and persistence with less code and effort.

Contribution

We introduce PIE, a DSL, API, and runtime that makes developing interactive pipelines easier, more concise, and more maintainable compared to existing approaches.

Findings

PIE reduces pipeline code by a factor of 6 in a syntax-aware editor case study.

PIE handles complex interactive pipelines effectively in two case studies.

PIE enables low-latency feedback in IDE environments.

Abstract

Context. Software development pipelines are used for automating essential parts of software engineering processes, such as build automation and continuous integration testing. In particular, interactive pipelines, which process events in a live environment such as an IDE, require timely results for low-latency feedback, and persistence to retain low-latency feedback between restarts. Inquiry. Developing an incrementalized and persistent version of a pipeline is one way to reduce feedback latency, but requires dependency tracking, cache invalidation, and other complicated techniques. Therefore, interactivity complicates pipeline development if timeliness and persistence become responsibilities of the pipeline programmer, rather than being supported by the underlying system. Approach. We develop Pipelines for Interactive Environments (PIE), a Domain-Specific Language (DSL), API, and runtime for developing interactive software development pipelines, where ease of development is a focus. Knowledge. PIE provides a straightforward programming model that enables direct and concise expression of pipelines without boilerplate, reducing the development and maintenance effort of pipelines. Compiled pipeline programs can be embedded into interactive environments such as code editors and IDEs, enabling timely feedback at a low cost. Grounding. Compared to the state of the art, PIE reduces the code required to express an interactive pipeline by a factor of 6 in a case study on syntax-aware editors. Furthermore, we evaluate PIE in two case studies of complex interactive software development scenarios, demonstrating that PIE can handle complex interactive pipelines in a straightforward and concise way.