Patterns of cross-language linking in java frameworks

The term Cross-Language Linking refers to the ability to specify, locate, navigate, and keep intact the connections between artifacts defined in different programming languages used for building one software application. Although understanding cross-language links and keeping them intact during development and maintenance activities is an important productivity issue, there has been little research on understanding the characteristics of such connections. We have thus built a theory from case studies, specifically, three theory-selected Java cross-language frameworks, each of which links artifacts written in the Java programming language to artifacts written in a declarative, framework-specific domain specific language. Our main contribution is to identify, from these experiences, common patterns of cross-language linking in the domain of Java frameworks with DSLs, which besides their informative nature can also be seen as requirements for designing and building a linking language and tooling infrastructure.