When standards or industry groups first get together, they often have the problem that each participant has their own words, phrases, and terms that they use to explain their ideas or concepts, (while of course acknowledging that there are also “political” agendas that some advance in standards bodies using certain terms and language). As a result, no one agrees with each other’s opinions until they realize that the definitions they are using are the problem. Once they have clarified those definitions, they may then discover that they all agree with each other and the only thing left to do is to agree on the terms and their corresponding definitions. This chapter attempts to mitigate these problems by defining a set of terms, definitions, and a classification system that ensures everyone knows what we are talking about in this book. In addition, because this is the first book in this technology space and tool support is just becoming available, it may be possible to establish a baseline for the whole industry to rally around.

The chapter is divided into two main sections. First, a taxonomy for the ESL space is defined. This is an extension and adaptation of an existing model taxonomy. The model taxonomy defines what we mean by abstraction, and the ESL taxonomy defines the factors that differentiate parts of the complete ESL landscape. We then provide a set of definitions for the terms used in this book, along with crossreferences to their use. This provides context for many of those definitions.

2.1 Taxonomy
     2.1.1 Introduction
     2.1.2 Model Taxonomy
         2.1.2.1 Temporal Axis
         2.1.2.2 Data Axis
         2.1.2.3 Functionality Axis
         2.1.2.4 Structural Axis
     2.1.3 ESL Taxonomy
         2.1.3.1 Concurrency
         2.1.3.2 Communication
         2.1.3.3 Configurability
         2.1.3.4 Examples
2.2 Definitions

Errata

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