12th EAI International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services

Research Article

Making Sense of EveXL, a DSL for Context Awareness

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/eai.22-7-2015.2260303,
        author={Bruno Cardoso and Teresa Rom\"{a}o},
        title={Making Sense of EveXL, a DSL for Context Awareness},
        proceedings={12th EAI International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services},
        publisher={ACM},
        proceedings_a={MOBIQUITOUS},
        year={2015},
        month={8},
        keywords={event detection engine domain-specific language evaluation},
        doi={10.4108/eai.22-7-2015.2260303}
    }
    
  • Bruno Cardoso
    Teresa Romão
    Year: 2015
    Making Sense of EveXL, a DSL for Context Awareness
    MOBIQUITOUS
    ICST
    DOI: 10.4108/eai.22-7-2015.2260303
Bruno Cardoso1,*, Teresa Romão1
  • 1: NOVA-LINCS, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Caparica, Portugal
*Contact email: b.m.pinto.cardoso@gmail.com

Abstract

The development of reactive, context aware mobile applications can be a complex task. EveWorks is an engine that provides event detection capabilities to other applications in mobile platforms, interfacing with them through expressions written in EveXL, its own domain-specific language. EveXL is built around simple, everyday concepts, like intervals of time and temporal relations and simplicity has been one of the driving goals for its development. To validate if this goal has been met, we have developed a videogame that implements its reactive behavior through EveWorks and asks players to read and interpret EveXL expressions. We have tested the game with players having little to no programming experience and results were very encouraging, indicating that EveXL is easy to understand and its concepts easily grasped.