RT-Syn: A real-time software system generator

This paper presents research into providing highly reusable and maintainable components by using automatic software synthesis techniques. This proposal uses domain knowledge combined with automatic software synthesis techniques to engineer large-scale mission-critical real-time software. The hypothesis centers on a software synthesis architecture that specifically incorporates application-specific (in this case real-time) knowledge. This architecture synthesizes complex system software to meet a behavioral specification and external interaction design constraints. Some examples of these external constraints are communication protocols, precisions, timing, and space limitations. The incorporation of application-specific knowledge facilitates the generation of mathematical software metrics which are used to narrow the design space, thereby making software synthesis tractable. Success has the potential to dramatically reduce mission-critical system life-cycle costs not only by reducing development time, but more importantly facilitating maintenance, modifications, and extensions of complex mission-critical software systems, which are currently dominating life cycle costs

Visual iconic object-oriented programming to advance computer science education and novice programming

Learning how to program a computer is difficult for most people. Computer programming is a cognitively challenging, time consuming, labor intensive, and frustrating endeavor. Years of formal study and training are required to learn a programming language\u27s world of algorithms and data structures. Instructions are coded in advance before the computer demonstrates the desired behavior. Seeing all the programming steps and instruction code is complicated. There exists a tremendous gap between the representations the human brain uses when thinking about a problem and the representations used in programming a computer. Often people are much better at dealing with specific, concrete objects than working with abstract ideas. Concrete and specific programming examples and demonstrations can be very useful. When cleverly chosen and properly used, programming examples and demonstrations help people understand the abstract concepts. Programming by example or demonstration attempts to extend these novel ideas to novice programming

Design, construction, and application of a generic visual language generation environment

2000-2001 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

AMBIENTE INTEGRADO DE VISUALIZACIÓN DE ESTRUCTURAS DE DATOS PARA LA ENSEÑANZA-APRENDIZAJE DE LA PROGRAMACIÓN DE COMPUTADORAS

En el proceso de enseñanza–aprendizaje de las asignaturas de programación de computadoras, se han enfrentado a problemas en el diseño y selección adecuada de las estructuras de datos para representar la información y las operaciones básicas que con ellas se realizan, lo que dificulta la obtención de algoritmos eficientes. Con base en esta situación se desarrolla un Ambiente Integrado de Visualización de Estructuras de Datos basado en mapas conceptuales que contiene un repositorio de recursos, en el que se destaca el sistema VisualProg que tiene como entrada el código en el lenguaje SubC y cuenta con los componentes de visualización de código, de datos, del árbol de recursividad y del análisis de complejidad del programa. La implementación se fundamentó en una arquitectura concebida en tres capas: Analizador de Código, Controladora y Vista. Se utilizó la modelación para el desarrollo de los algoritmos, métodos estadísticos para comprobar la utilidad de la propuesta y validar los aportes fundamentales de la investigación. Se aplicó en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje de la asignatura Estructura de Datos de la carrera Ingeniería Informática en la Universidad de Granma, Cuba, e Ingeniería en Sistemas de la Universidad Estatal del Sur de Manabí en Ecuador. Se demuestró que la integración de técnicas de visualización contribuye a solucionar problemas relacionados con el diseño e implementación de estructuras de datos y programas. ABSTRACT In the teaching-learning process of computer programming subjects, problems have been faced in the design and adequate selection of data structures to represent the information and the basic operations that are carried out with them, which makes it difficult to obtain efficient algorithms. Based on this situation, an Integrated Environment for Visualization of Data Structures is developed based on conceptual maps that contains a resource repository, in which the VisualProg system is highlighted, which has the code in the SubC language as input and has the components of code visualization, of data, of the recursion tree and of the complexity analysis of the program. The implementation was based on an architecture conceived in three layers: Code Analyzer, Controller and View. Modeling is used to develop the algorithms, statistical methods to verify the usefulness of the proposal and validate the fundamental contributions of the research. The environment was applied in the teachinglearning process of the subject Data Structure of the Computer Engineering career at the University of Granma, Cuba and Systems Engineering of the Southern State University of Manabí in Ecuador. It is demonstrated that the integration of visualization techniques contributes to solve problems related to the design and implementation of data structures and programs. KEY WORDS: Program visualization systems, data structures, concept maps

Symbol–Relation Grammars: A Formalism for Graphical Languages

AbstractA common approach to the formal description of pictorial and visual languages makes use of formal grammars and rewriting mechanisms. The present paper is concerned with the formalism of Symbol–Relation Grammars (SR grammars, for short). Each sentence in an SR language is composed of a set of symbol occurrences representing visual elementary objects, which are related through a set of binary relational items. The main feature of SR grammars is the uniform way they use context-free productions to rewrite symbol occurrences as well as relation items. The clearness and uniformity of the derivation process for SR grammars allow the extension of well-established techniques of syntactic and semantic analysis to the case of SR grammars. The paper provides an accurate analysis of the derivation mechanism and the expressive power of the SR formalism. This is necessary to fully exploit the capabilities of the model. The most meaningful features of SR grammars as well as their generative power are compared with those of well-known graph grammar families. In spite of their structural simplicity, variations of SR grammars have a generative power comparable with that of expressive classes of graph grammars, such as the edNCE and the N-edNCE classes

Working Notes from the 1992 AAAI Workshop on Automating Software Design. Theme: Domain Specific Software Design

The goal of this workshop is to identify different architectural approaches to building domain-specific software design systems and to explore issues unique to domain-specific (vs. general-purpose) software design. Some general issues that cut across the particular software design domain include: (1) knowledge representation, acquisition, and maintenance; (2) specialized software design techniques; and (3) user interaction and user interface

Formal functional testing of graphical user interfaces.

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