Prototyping real-time systems

The traditional software development paradigm, the waterfall life cycle model, is defective when used for developing real-time systems. This thesis puts forward an executable prototyping approach for the development of real-time systems. A prototyping system is proposed which uses ESML (Extended Systems Modelling Language) as a prototype specification language. The prototyping system advocates the translation of non-executable ESML specifications into executable LOOPN (Language of Object Oriented Petn Net) specifications so that ESML can be used as a graphical executable specification language for the prototyping of real-time systems. If the translation process is automatic then the user need not be aware of LOOPN. The ESML/LOOPN prototyping system defines an execution semantics for the ESML language in terms of LOOPN nets, a set of translation templates are supplied for the translation of ESML language specifications into LOOPN language specifications. The execution semantics are based on a set of execution rules (guidelines) which have been defined for ESML to allow prediction of the behaviour of ESML specifications over time. A C language program which can be run by the user as a prototype of the modelled system is generated automatically from the LOOPN specification. The ESML/LOOPN prototyping system has been applied to build an exploratory prototype of a typical real-time system, 1e the Fuel Subsystem of the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU), an avionic system used on the Boeing-737 airplane series

Customizing an Open Source Web Portal Framework in a Business Context : Integrating Participatory Design with an Agile Approach

In this thesis, we have investigated how an open source web portal can be used in a business context. This investigation required development of components for a web portal to meet the company’s needs. The motivation for this thesis was to design a web portal to organize the rapid growth of information and to improve the communication both internally and externally. The company that we collaborated with experienced expansion of the working staff, as well as in the customer base. Because the requirements for the web portal were uncertain, the development demanded a lot of communication and collaboration between us, as developers, and the company. With help from the Agile methodology and Participatory Design we were able to clarify the requirements and to overcome the problems during the development. We have especially utilized Agile’s Extreme Programming method as the developing technique. We argue that by applying this method in the given context, we attained the necessary foundation needed for the successful realization of the project. In addition, in situations where we supplemented it with techniques from Participatory Design; we gained a better understanding of the components to be made