Implementing an Integrated Development Environment: A Quick Start Guide for PL Researchers

This repository accompanies the PLDI 2026 tutorial: Implementing an Integrated Development Environment: a Quick Start Guide for PL Researchers.

Overview

This tutorial demonstrates practical techniques for rapidly prototyping integrated development environments (IDEs) for domain-specific and research programming languages. We present two complementary, production-ready approaches:

1. Text-based IDE with Language Server Protocol (LSP): Implemented using Visual Studio Code and Eclipse Langium, this approach leverages traditional grammar-based parsing and standard IDE features.
2. Projectional Editor: Implemented using JetBrains Meta Programming System (MPS), this parser-less approach guarantees structural correctness and supports both textual and non-textual notations.

Throughout the tutorial, we implement foundational IDE features including cross-reference resolution, autocompletion, semantic validation, type checking, and quick fixes. The two parts are independent and can be studied separately.

Getting Started

Repository Branches

This repository provides two workflows:

• tutorial-start — Starter project for live coding during the tutorial. Includes partial implementations to guide the coding session.
• main — Complete, fully functional implementation of both IDEs. Use this branch to explore the final system.

System Requirements

For the text-based IDE (Langium/VS Code):

• Node.js v20.0 or higher (tested with v23.10.0)
• npm v10.0 or higher (tested with v10.9.2)
• A recent version of VS Code (tested with 1.123.0)
• Download Node.js
• Download VS Code

For the projectional editor (MPS):

• JetBrains MPS 2025.3
• Download MPS

Repository Structure

Main Directories

• textual/ — Text-based IDE implementation using Langium and VS Code
• projectional/ — Projectional IDE implementation using JetBrains MPS
• resources/ — Language specification and documentation

Language Documentation

• grammar.pdf — Grammar for the textual IDE
• concepts.pdf — Language concepts for the projectional IDE
• rules.pdf — Language rules and typing

Language Target

Both implementations use a subset of BEAN, a research programming language with a type system for linear and discrete types.

Detailed Documentation

Refer to the README files in each subdirectory for implementation-specific details:

• Text-based IDE Documentation
• Projectional Editor Documentation