Martin Fowler | |
|---|---|
 Fowler in 2015 | |
| Born | (1963-12-18)18 December 1963 (age 62) Walsall, England, UK |
| Education | University College London(BSc, 1986)[1] |
| Occupations | Software developer, author, public speaker |
| Employer | ThoughtWorks |
| Website | martinfowler |
Martin Fowler (18 December 1963) is a Britishsoftware developer,[2] author and international public speaker on software development, specialising inobject-oriented analysis and design,UML,patterns, andagile software development methodologies, includingextreme programming.
His 1999 bookRefactoring popularised the practice ofcode refactoring.[3] In 2004 he introduced a newarchitectural pattern, called Presentation Model (PM).[4]
Fowler was born and grew up inWalsall, England, where he went toQueen Mary's Grammar School for his secondary education. He graduated atUniversity College London in 1986. In 1994, he moved to the United States, where he lives nearBoston,Massachusetts in the suburb ofMelrose.[1]
Fowler started working with software in the early 1980s. Out of university in 1986 he started working in software development forCoopers & Lybrand until 1991.[5] In 2000 he joinedThoughtWorks, a systems integration and consulting company,[1] where he is Chief Scientist.[6][1]
Fowler has written nine books on the topic of software development. He is a member of theAgile Alliance and helped create theManifesto for Agile Software Development in 2001, along with 16 fellow signatories.[7] He maintains abliki, a mix ofblog andwiki. He popularised the termDependency Injection as a form ofInversion of Control.[8][9]
Fowler’sDomain-specific languages discusses small, composable programming languages focused on an individual domain.[10]: 27 He argues that domain-specific languages increase productivity by removing the need for the programmer to understand a full programming language, by improving communication withdomain experts, and by separating the execution of a task from its definition.[10]: 33 These benefits are set against the cost of learning a new language and building the tools for this language.[10]: 39
Fowler introduces the concept ofinternal (orembedded) andexternal domain-specific languages. An internal language is a subset of another language and can be executed by the tools for this outer language.Ruby andLisp are given as an example of languages where internal domain-specific languages are common. Fowler also introduces the idea ofSemantic Model.[10]: 14 Various domain-specific languages are presented includinggraphviz, a language for specifyinggraphs to be rendered; JMock, a java mocking framework;CSS, a language to specify stylistic elements of a website;HQL, anobject relational mapper;XAML, a language used to specify and changegraphical user interfaces; FIT, a language to express testing scenarios; andmake, a tool to build software[10]: 147
The book discusses implementing an external domain-specific language usingparsers,lexers,abstract syntax trees andcode generation referred to as "syntax-driven translation"[10]: 219 This is contrasted with "delimiter-driven translation" which is simpler but less powerful. Here the language is simple enough to beinterpreted by splitting on delimiters and switching logic based on individual entries.[10]: 201
Ways of implementing internal domain-specific languages are discussed, with attention to nested function calls,[10]: 357 sequences of function calls,[10]: 351 ormethod chaining[10]: 373 .[citation needed]
