Reflections on Courses for Software Language Engineering

Software Language Engineering (SLE) has emerged as a field in computer science research and software engineering, but it has yet to become entrenched as part of the standard curriculum at universities. Many places have a compiler construction (CC) course and a programming languages (PL) course, but these are not aimed at training students in typical SLE matters such as DSL design and implementation, language workbenches, generalised parsers, and meta-tools. We describe our experiences with developing and teaching software language engineering courses at the Universities of Bergen and Koblenz-Landau. We reflect on lecture topics, assignments, development of course material, and other aspects and variation points in course design.