Playing cupid: The IDE as a matchmaker for plug-ins

We describe a composable, data-driven, plug-in ecosystem for IDEs. Inspired by Unix´s and Windows Power-Shell´s pipeline communication models, each plug-in declares data-driven capabilities. Developers can then seamlessly mix, match, and combine plug-in capabilities to produce new insight, without modifying the plug-ins. We formalize the architecture using the polymorphic lambda calculus, with special types for source and source locations; the type system prevents nonsensical plug-in combinations, and helps to inform the design of new tools and plug-ins. To illustrate the power of the formalism, we describe several synergies between existing plug-ins (and tools) made possible by the ecosystem.