1,591 research outputs found
Proactive Empirical Assessment of New Language Feature Adoption via Automated Refactoring: The Case of Java 8 Default Methods
Programming languages and platforms improve over time, sometimes resulting in
new language features that offer many benefits. However, despite these
benefits, developers may not always be willing to adopt them in their projects
for various reasons. In this paper, we describe an empirical study where we
assess the adoption of a particular new language feature. Studying how
developers use (or do not use) new language features is important in
programming language research and engineering because it gives designers
insight into the usability of the language to create meaning programs in that
language. This knowledge, in turn, can drive future innovations in the area.
Here, we explore Java 8 default methods, which allow interfaces to contain
(instance) method implementations.
Default methods can ease interface evolution, make certain ubiquitous design
patterns redundant, and improve both modularity and maintainability. A focus of
this work is to discover, through a scientific approach and a novel technique,
situations where developers found these constructs useful and where they did
not, and the reasons for each. Although several studies center around assessing
new language features, to the best of our knowledge, this kind of construct has
not been previously considered.
Despite their benefits, we found that developers did not adopt default
methods in all situations. Our study consisted of submitting pull requests
introducing the language feature to 19 real-world, open source Java projects
without altering original program semantics. This novel assessment technique is
proactive in that the adoption was driven by an automatic refactoring approach
rather than waiting for developers to discover and integrate the feature
themselves. In this way, we set forth best practices and patterns of using the
language feature effectively earlier rather than later and are able to possibly
guide (near) future language evolution. We foresee this technique to be useful
in assessing other new language features, design patterns, and other
programming idioms
Efficient compilation of .NET programs for embedded systems
International audienceThe overhead associated with object-oriented languages has been the major drawback in their adoption by the embedded world. In this paper, we propose a compilation approach based on the closed-world assumption (CWA) that should enable OO technologies such as .NET on small embedded systems. Our implementation is based on a type analysis algorithm, which extends RTA so that it eliminates some subtype tests due to array covariance, and coloring, which maintain single subtyping invariants under the CWA. The impact of our global optimizations has been evaluated on embedded applications written in C#. Preliminary results show a noticeable reduction of the code size, class hierarchy and object mechanisms such as virtual calls and subtype tests
Model Transformation Languages with Modular Information Hiding
Model transformations, together with models, form the principal artifacts in model-driven software development. Industrial practitioners report that transformations on larger models quickly get sufficiently large and complex themselves. To alleviate entailed maintenance efforts, this thesis presents a modularity concept with explicit interfaces, complemented by software visualization and clustering techniques. All three approaches are tailored to the specific needs of the transformation domain
Closing the gap between guidance and practice, an investigation of the relevance of design guidance to practitioners using object-oriented technologies
This thesis investigates if object oriented guidance is relevant in practice, and how this affects software that is produced. This is achieved by surveying practitioners and studying how constructs such as interfaces and inheritance are used in open-source systems. Surveyed practitioners framed 'good design' in terms of impact on development and maintenance. Recognition of quality requires practitioner judgement (individually and as a group), and principles are valued over rules. Time constraints heighten sensitivity to the rework cost of poor design decisions. Examination of open source systems highlights the use of interface and inheritance. There is some evidence of 'textbook' use of these structures, and much use is simple. Outliers are widespread indicating a pragmatic approach. Design is found to reflect the pressures of practice - high-level decisions justify 'designed' structures and architecture, while uncertainty leads to deferred design decisions - simpler structures, repetition, and unconsolidated design. Sub-populations of structures can be identified which may represent common trade-offs. Useful insights are gained into practitioner attitude to design guidance. Patterns of use and structure are identified which may aid in assessment and comprehension of object oriented systems.This thesis investigates if object oriented guidance is relevant in practice, and how this affects software that is produced. This is achieved by surveying practitioners and studying how constructs such as interfaces and inheritance are used in open-source systems. Surveyed practitioners framed 'good design' in terms of impact on development and maintenance. Recognition of quality requires practitioner judgement (individually and as a group), and principles are valued over rules. Time constraints heighten sensitivity to the rework cost of poor design decisions. Examination of open source systems highlights the use of interface and inheritance. There is some evidence of 'textbook' use of these structures, and much use is simple. Outliers are widespread indicating a pragmatic approach. Design is found to reflect the pressures of practice - high-level decisions justify 'designed' structures and architecture, while uncertainty leads to deferred design decisions - simpler structures, repetition, and unconsolidated design. Sub-populations of structures can be identified which may represent common trade-offs. Useful insights are gained into practitioner attitude to design guidance. Patterns of use and structure are identified which may aid in assessment and comprehension of object oriented systems
Model Transformation Languages with Modular Information Hiding
Model transformations, together with models, form the principal artifacts in model-driven software development. Industrial practitioners report that transformations on larger models quickly get sufficiently large and complex themselves. To alleviate entailed maintenance efforts, this thesis presents a modularity concept with explicit interfaces, complemented by software visualization and clustering techniques. All three approaches are tailored to the specific needs of the transformation domain
Structuring fault-tolerant object-oriented systems using inheritance and delegation
PhD ThesisMany entities in the real world that a software system has to interact with, e.g.,
for controlling or monitoring purposes, exhibit different behaviour phases in their
lifetime, in particular depending on whether or not they are functioning correctly.
That is, these entities exhibit not only a normal behaviour phase but also one or
more abnormal behaviour phases associated with the various faults which occur
in the environment. These faults are referred to as environmental faults. In the
object-oriented software, real-world entities are modeled as objects. In a classbased
object-oriented language, such as C++, all objects of a given class must
follow the same external behaviour, i.e., they have the same interface and associated
implementation. However this requires that each object permanently belong
to a particular class, imposing constraints on the mutability of the behaviour for
an individual object. This thesis proposes solutions to the problem of finding
means whereby objects representing real-world entities which exhibit various behaviour
phases can make corresponding changes in their own behaviour in a clear
and explicit way, rather than through status-checking code which is normally
embedded in the implementation of various methods.
Our proposed solution is (i) to define a hierarchy of different subclasses related to
an object which corresponds to an external entity, each subclass implementing a
different behaviour phase that the external entity can exhibit, and (ii) to arrange
that each object forward the execution of its operations to the currently appropriate
instance of this hierarchy of subclasses. We thus propose an object-oriented
approach for the provision of environmental fault tolerance, which encapsulates
the abnormal behaviour of "faulty" entities as objects (instances of the above
mentioned subclasses). These abnormal behaviour variants are defined statically,
and runtime access to them is implemented through a delegation mechanism which
depends on the current phase of behaviour. Thus specific reconfiguration changes
at the level of objects can be easily incorporated to a software system for tolerating
environmental faults
Clafer: Lightweight Modeling of Structure, Behaviour, and Variability
Embedded software is growing fast in size and complexity, leading to intimate
mixture of complex architectures and complex control. Consequently, software
specification requires modeling both structures and behaviour of systems.
Unfortunately, existing languages do not integrate these aspects well, usually
prioritizing one of them. It is common to develop a separate language for each
of these facets. In this paper, we contribute Clafer: a small language that
attempts to tackle this challenge. It combines rich structural modeling with
state of the art behavioural formalisms. We are not aware of any other modeling
language that seamlessly combines these facets common to system and software
modeling. We show how Clafer, in a single unified syntax and semantics, allows
capturing feature models (variability), component models, discrete control
models (automata) and variability encompassing all these aspects. The language
is built on top of first order logic with quantifiers over basic entities (for
modeling structures) combined with linear temporal logic (for modeling
behaviour). On top of this semantic foundation we build a simple but expressive
syntax, enriched with carefully selected syntactic expansions that cover
hierarchical modeling, associations, automata, scenarios, and Dwyer's property
patterns. We evaluate Clafer using a power window case study, and comparing it
against other notations that substantially overlap with its scope (SysML, AADL,
Temporal OCL and Live Sequence Charts), discussing benefits and perils of using
a single notation for the purpose
Improving Object-Oriented Programming by Integrating Language Features to Support Immutability
Nowadays developers consider Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) the de-facto general programming paradigm. While successful, OOP is not without problems. In 1994, Gamma et al. published a book with a set of 23 design patterns addressing recurring problems found in OOP software. These patterns are well-known in the industry and are taught in universities as part of software engineering curricula. Despite their usefulness in solving recurring problems, these design patterns bring a certain complexity in their implementation. That complexity is influenced by the features available in the implementation language. In this thesis, we want to decrease this complexity by focusing on the problems that design patterns attempt to solve and the language features that can be used to solve them. Thus, we aim to investigate the impact of specific language features on OOP and contribute guidelines to improve OOP language design.
We first perform a mapping study to catalogue the language features that have been proposed in the literature to improve design pattern implementations. From those features, we focus on investigating the impact of immutability-related features on OOP.
We then perform an exploratory study measuring the impact of introducing immutability in OOP software with the objective of establishing the advantages and drawbacks of using immutability in the context of OOP. Results indicate that immutability may produce more granular and easier-to-understand programs.
We also perform an experiment to measure the impact of new language features added into the C\# language for better immutability support. Results show that these specific language features facilitate developers' tasks when aiming to implement immutability in OOP.
We finally present a new design pattern aimed at solving a problem with method overriding in the context of immutable hierarchies of objects. We discuss the impact of language features on the implementations of this pattern by comparing these implementations in different programming languages, including Clojure, Java, and Kotlin.
Finally, we implement these language features as a language extension to Common Lisp and discuss their usage
Project-Team RMoD 2013 Activity Report
Activity Report 2013 Project-Team RMOD Analyses and Languages Constructs for Object-Oriented Application Evolutio
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