In this paper we present a view of constraint programming based on the notion of rewriting controlled by strategies. We argue that this concept allows us to describe in a unified way the constraint solving mechanism as well as the meta-language needed to manipulate the constraints. This has the advantage to provide descriptions that are very close to the proof theoretical setting used now to describe constraint manipulations like unification or numerical constraint solving. We examplify the approach by presenting examples of constraint solvers descriptions and combinations written in the elan language.