ABSE is Language-Independent

An ABSE model is composed of many Atom Instances, which can then be executed to fulfill the designer's intents. This model execution mainly leads to text generation. ABSE can generate all kinds of textual output, from plain text files to complex data files.

A single ABSE project can target multiple languages and file types. A single Atom can generate code for multiple languages, in multiple files.

This interesting ABSE feature allows the development of heterogeneous systems, spanning multiple platforms, technologies, and languages.

The best practice is to have one Atom Library for each language you want to target. Then, an additional Atom Library will contain Templates that reuse other, language-specific Templates.

In the diagram below, you can see an example of how a single Atom Template can generate for multiple targets. This is also an example of how you can start with small Templates and then build larger ones by combining existing Templates.

The web_form Atom Template reuses three other Atom Templates: css_text_style generates code for CSS stylesheets, html_form_button generates code for HTML form elements, and php_form_validation generates PHP code.