Term Rewriting for Sale
Mark van den Brand, Paul Klint, Chris Verhoef · Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science · 1998
Term rewriting has a large potential for industrial applications, but these applications are always larger than one could ever dream of: huge sets of rewrite rules and gigantic terms to rewrite pose interesting challenges for implementors and theoreticians alike. We give a brief overview of the generation of term-rewriting-based tools as done in the ASF+SDF Meta-Environment and then we sketch two major applications of term rewriting: transformation of legacy COBOL systems and compilation of ASF+SDF to C. Based on these experiences we suggest the study of topics that could further advance the use of term rewriting in industrial applications: persistent term databases, generalized LR parsing versus parallel term rewriting, and coordination languages versus strategy languages. It will turn out that we have an “alien” view on research in term rewriting: properties like confluence and termination are of very limited use when selling term rewriting to industry.