RIDDL Documentation
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Author's Guide

The author needs a clear and intuitive language to program in (RIDDL). This activity is greatly facilitated by tools to aid the job, for example, IDE plugins, graphical authoring utilities, and so on. The author needs to have the ability to configure these tools and utilities to match their mode of work. The RIDDL compiler must emit clear feedback on errors, warnings, and other details that would improve the overall correctness and outputs from RIDDL.

RIDDL sources are intended to be kept in version control along with the source code. The RIDDL compiler, riddlc, has utilities that will automate the process of generating RIDDL outputs from source control or in local environments. These will be discussed further when we dive into riddlc in depth.

Authors are the individuals who create system specifications. Such work is greatly aided by using a clear, concise, precise, and intuitive language in which to specify a system. That language is RIDDL. Authors form the bridge between Domain Experts and Implementors.

Authors should have an expert understanding of DDD, and be familiar with reactive architecture, API design, distributed systems concepts, and software architecture in general. While not required, it is also helpful to be familiar with Scala, Akka (including Akka Clustering and Streaming), and cloud architectures. This knowledge is useful for the successful construction of a viable domain model encoded in RIDDL. Consequently, Authors must acquire a full understanding of the syntax, structure and semantics of RIDDL.

It will also be very helpful if authors become familiar with:

  • Markdown
  • Git
  • Hugo
  • Geekdoc Theme for Hugo
  • HOCON configuration format
  • Scala programming language
  • The Actor Model
  • Functional Programming

This activity is greatly facilitated by tools to aid the job, for example, IDE plugins, graphical authoring utilities, and so on. The author needs to have the ability to configure and run these tools and utilities to match their mode of work. The RIDDL compiler emits clear feedback on errors, warnings, and an author must be able to interpret those messages and use them to adjust the RIDDL sources to improve the overall correctness in the outputs from RIDDL.