Upgrading EasyTime: from a textual to a visual language

Abstract: Measuring time in mass sports competitions is usually performed using expensive measuring devices. Unfortunately, these solutions are not acceptable by many organizers of sporting competitions. In order to make the measuring time as cheap as possible, the domain-specific language (DSL) EasyTime was proposed. In practice, it has been proven to be universal, flexible, and efficient. It can even reduce the number of required measuring devices. On the other hand, programming in EasyTime is not easy, because it requires a domain-expert to program in a textual manner. In this paper, the domain-specific modeling language (DSML) EasyTime II is proposed, which simplifies the programming of the measuring system. First, the DSL EasyTime domain analysis is presented. Then, the development of DSML is described in detail. Finally, the DSML was tested by regular organizers of a sporting competition. This test showed that DSML can be used by end-users without any previous programming knowledge.