Towards an Ontology for the Foundations of Software Languages

2026-05-17

AI Summary

This work addresses the lack of a unified knowledge organization framework across software languages—such as programming and modeling languages—by proposing the Foundational Ontology for Software Languages (FSL). It presents the first comprehensive ontology framework encompassing diverse software language types, augmented with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) techniques to support concept discovery, classification, linking, completion, and transformation within the ontology. Following established ontology engineering practices—including requirements analysis, reuse, conceptualization, formalization, and validation—the project has successfully released FSL Version 1. This structured, cross-disciplinary knowledge resource enhances computer science education by systematically interconnecting multiple subject areas and significantly improving the organization and application efficiency of software language knowledge.

Abstract

The notion of software languages subsumes programming languages, modeling languages, and yet many other types of languages used in software engineering. The emerging ontology `Foundations of Software Languages' (FSL) organizes the foundations underlying software languages. We are concerned with language categories, language concepts, associated tools and methodological approaches, the formal systems or other formal entities underlying software languages, and the embedding of software languages into into software engineering activities. The primary objective of FSL is to serve as a knowledge resource in Computer Science education by connecting several subject areas in a principled manner. The first release of FSL (V1), as discussed in this paper, was built through a relatively standard methodology involving common steps for expectations, reuse, conceptualization, formalization, and validation. We leveraged GenAI to support ontology engineering (discovery, classification, linkage, completion, and transformation).

Problem

• software languages
• ontology
• foundations
• computer science education
• formal systems

Innovation

• ontology engineering
• software languages
• generative AI
• knowledge representation
• computer science education