Developing and integrating tools in Eclipse/PCTE

The whole area of software engineering environments is an emerging one. Such environments have become necessary due to the rapid changes which have occurred in the software industry in the last twenty years. The desire is to produce products of high quality and at a reasonable cost. Unfortunately history shows that, in general, software systems rarely met the specific need for which they were developed and were often unreliable, inefficient , poorly documented and required considerable maintenance. One of the main areas of research into increasing both the productivity and the quality of software has been the use of software engineering environments. The area of software engineering environments is a changing one with evolving definitions. What can be stated is that a key objective of software engineering environments is the support of software process from requirements definition through to system maintenance. Such support can only be provided through the development of integrated sets of tools each supporting various aspects of the software development process. In order for tools to be fully integrated and have the same ’look and feel’ it is necessary that they are developed on a common platform, providing all the facilities needed for tool development and integration. Such a platform is the Eclipse tool builder’s kit based on the Portable Common Tool Environment (PCTE). The work in this thesis was based on an evaluation of this development platform for developing and integrating software tools, particularly real-time telecommunications software tools. The work in this thesis was carried out as part of the European Community’s RACE programme. The project was called SPECS 1. The SPECS project is outlined in chapter one of this thesis along with a brief history of the research into software engineering environments to date. The work which I was responsible for involved both the integration of existing toolsets and tools, developed by other partners in the SPECS project, as well as the development of new "native" tools within Eclipse/PCTE. This work was necessary so that the SPECS project could produce an integrated set of tools at the end of its research. It was my job to evaluate the potential of Eclipse/PCTE as a basis for this integration

Thesaurus-Based Methodologies and Tools for Maintaining Persistent Application Systems

The research presented in this thesis establishes thesauri as a viable foundation for models, methodologies and tools for change management. Most of the research has been undertaken in a persistent programming environment. Persistent language technology has enabled the construction of sophisticated and well-integrated change management tools; tools and applications reside in the same store. At the same time, the research has enhanced persistent programming environments with models, methodologies and tools that are crucial to the exploitation of persistent programming in construction and maintenance of long-lived, data-intensive application systems

New Game, Old Rules? Mechanisms and Consequences of Legitimation in Boundary Spanning Activities

Despite the increasing deployment of formalized boundary spanning roles and practices, the mechanisms and dynamics of their legitimation remain under-explored. Using the Bourdieusian lens, we theorize legitimation of boundary spanning as accumulation, mobilization and conversion of several forms of capital unfolding in a configuration of intersecting fields. Drawing on a qualitative longitudinal case study of a collaborative partnership between a university and healthcare organizations, we describe changes in the structure, sources and mutual convertibility of capital assets over time. We also analyse the implications of this evolution for the relationships between the intersecting fields and the social trajectory of boundary spanners. We argue that legitimation of boundary spanning roles and practices is a highly transformative, collective and political process that increases the capital endowments and authority of individual boundary spanning agents but may lead to the erosion of the very same roles and practices that were being legitimized

An Object-Oriented Programming Environment for Parallel Genetic Algorithms

This thesis investigates an object-oriented programming environment for building parallel applications based on genetic algorithms (GAs). It describes the design of the Genetic Algorithms Manipulation Environment (GAME), which focuses on three major software development requirements: flexibility, expandability and portability. Flexibility is provided by GAME through a set of libraries containing pre-defined and parameterised components such as genetic operators and algorithms. Expandability is offered by GAME'S object-oriented design. It allows applications, algorithms and genetic operators to be easily modified and adapted to satisfy diverse problem's requirements. Lastly, portability is achieved through the use of the standard C++ language, and by isolating machine and operating system dependencies into low-level modules, which are hidden from the application developer by GAME'S application programming interfaces. The development of GAME is central to the Programming Environment for Applications of PArallel GENetic Algorithms project (PAPAGENA). This is the principal European Community (ESPRIT III) funded parallel genetic algorithms project. It has two main goals: to provide a general-purpose tool kit, supporting the development and analysis of large-scale parallel genetic algorithms (PGAs) applications, and to demonstrate the potential of applying evolutionary computing in diverse problem domains. The research reported in this thesis is divided in two parts: i) the analysis of GA models and the study of existing GA programming environments from an application developer perspective; ii) the description of a general-purpose programming environment designed to help with the development of GA and PGA-based computer programs. The studies carried out in the first part provide the necessary understanding of GAs' structure and operation to outline the requirements for the development of complex computer programs. The second part presents GAME as the result of combining development requirements, relevant features of existing environments and innovative ideas, into a powerful programming environment. The system is described in terms of its abstract data structures and sub-systems that allow the representation of problems independently of any particular GA model. GAME's programming model is also presented as general-purpose object-oriented framework for programming coarse-grained parallel applications. GAME has a modular architecture comprising five modules: the Virtual Machine, the Parallel Execution Module, the Genetic Libraries, the Monitoring Control Module, and the Graphic User Interface. GAME's genetic-oriented abstract data structures, and the Virtual Machine, isolates genetic operators and algorithms from low-level operations such as memory management, exception handling, etc. The Parallel Execution Module supports GAME's object- oriented parallel programming model. It defines an application programming interface and a runtime library that allow the same parallel application, created within the environment, to run on different hardware and operating system platforms. The Genetic Libraries outline a hierarchy of components implemented as parameterised versions of standard and custom genetic operators, algorithms and applications. The Monitoring Control Module supports dynamic control and monitoring of simulations, whereas the Graphic User Interface defines a basic framework and graphic 'widgets' for displaying and entering data. This thesis describes the design philosophy and rationale behind these modules, covering in more detail the Virtual Machine, the Parallel Execution Module and the Genetic Libraries. The assessment discusses the system's ability to satisfy the main requirements of GA and PGA software development, as well as the features that distinguish GAME from other programming environments

On the construction of persistent programming environments

This thesis presents research into the construction of persistent programming systems. Much of the thesis is concerned with the design and implementation of persistent programming languages, in particular PS-algol and Napier. Both languages support machine independent vector and raster graphics data types. Napier provides an environment mechanism that enables the incremental construction and binding of programs. Napier has a powerful type system featuring parametric polymorphism and abstract data types. The machine supporting Napier, the Persistent Abstract Machine, is investigated. The machine supports an efficient implementation of parametric polymorphism and abstract data types. The Persistent Abstract Machine has a layered architecture in which permits experimentation into language implementation and store design. The construction of compilers in a persistent environment is explored. A flexible compiler architecture is developed. With it, a family of compilers may be constructed at relatively little cost. One such compiler is the callable compiler; this is a first class data object in the persistent environment. The uses of such a compiler are explored, in particular in the construction of an object browser. The persistent object browser introduces a new software architecture that permits adaptive programs to be constructed incrementally. This is achieved by writing, compiling and linking new procedures into an executing program. The architecture has been successfully applied to the construction of adaptive databases and bootstrap compilers