A Framework: How Can Heterogeneous Meta-Programs Be Further Generalized?

As it was learned before, a meta-program is a specific computer program that can be seen as a generalized entity because it generates other programs or program parts [Ort07]. We share the view to meta-programming as a program generalization/generation technique with Veldhuizen [Vel06] and many other researchers. On the other hand, meta-programming is not a homogeneous field as it was outlined in Chap. 2. In a wider context, currently meta-programming is understood and dealt with from slightly different perspectives (e.g. as frame-based programming [CJ99], aspect-oriented programming [KLM+97], generative programming [CE01], generic programming [RJ05a], feature-oriented programming [TBD07]). What is common for the approaches is that they seek for the same aim: to achieve higher productivity and quality of the process to develop a program. The approaches, however, differ in concepts, formalisms and applied techniques. That is why various generalization forms in the field are possible. Our approach to meta-programming, which we considered basically in Chaps. 3, 4, and 5, is based on the extension of the preprocessing concept using two languages at once in the structural programming manner.