Phobos: A front-end approach to extensible compilers (long version)

This paper describes a practical approach for implementing certain types of domain-specific languages with extensible compilers. Given a compiler with one or more front-end languages, we introduce the idea of a "generic" front-end that allows the syntactic and semantic specification of domain-specific languages. Phobos, our generic front-end, offers modular language specification, allowing the programmer to define new syntax and semantics incrementally

Modeling adaptation with a tuple-based coordination language

In recent years, it has been argued that systems and applications, in order to deal with their increasing complexity, should be able to adapt their behavior according to new requirements or environment conditions. In this paper, we present a preliminary investigation aiming at studying how coordination languages and formal methods can contribute to a better understanding, implementation and usage of the mechanisms and techniques for adaptation currently proposed in the literature. Our study relies on the formal coordination language Klaim as a common framework for modeling some adaptation techniques, namely the MAPE-K loop, aspect- and context-oriented programming

Proceedings of International Workshop "Global Computing: Programming Environments, Languages, Security and Analysis of Systems"

According to the IST/ FET proactive initiative on GLOBAL COMPUTING, the goal is to obtain techniques (models, frameworks, methods, algorithms) for constructing systems that are flexible, dependable, secure, robust and efficient. The dominant concerns are not those of representing and manipulating data efficiently but rather those of handling the co-ordination and interaction, security, reliability, robustness, failure modes, and control of risk of the entities in the system and the overall design, description and performance of the system itself. Completely different paradigms of computer science may have to be developed to tackle these issues effectively. The research should concentrate on systems having the following characteristics: • The systems are composed of autonomous computational entities where activity is not centrally controlled, either because global control is impossible or impractical, or because the entities are created or controlled by different owners. • The computational entities are mobile, due to the movement of the physical platforms or by movement of the entity from one platform to another. • The configuration varies over time. For instance, the system is open to the introduction of new computational entities and likewise their deletion. The behaviour of the entities may vary over time. • The systems operate with incomplete information about the environment. For instance, information becomes rapidly out of date and mobility requires information about the environment to be discovered. The ultimate goal of the research action is to provide a solid scientific foundation for the design of such systems, and to lay the groundwork for achieving effective principles for building and analysing such systems. This workshop covers the aspects related to languages and programming environments as well as analysis of systems and resources involving 9 projects (AGILE , DART, DEGAS , MIKADO, MRG, MYTHS, PEPITO, PROFUNDIS, SECURE) out of the 13 founded under the initiative. After an year from the start of the projects, the goal of the workshop is to fix the state of the art on the topics covered by the two clusters related to programming environments and analysis of systems as well as to devise strategies and new ideas to profitably continue the research effort towards the overall objective of the initiative. We acknowledge the Dipartimento di Informatica and Tlc of the University of Trento, the Comune di Rovereto, the project DEGAS for partially funding the event and the Events and Meetings Office of the University of Trento for the valuable collaboration

CODEWEAVE: exploring fine-grained mobility of code

This paper is concerned with an abstract exploration of code mobility constructs designed for use in settings where the level of granularity associated with the mobile units exhibits significant variability. Units of mobility that are both finer and coarser grained than the unit of execution are examined. To accomplish this, we take the extreme view that every line of code and every variable declaration are potentially mobile, i.e., it may be duplicated or moved from one program context to another on the same host or across the network. We also assume that complex code assemblies may move with equal ease. The result is CODEWEAVE, a model that shows how to develop new forms of code mobility, assign them precise meaning, and facilitate formal verification of programs employing them. The design of CODEWEAVE relies greatly on Mobile UNITY, a notation and proof logic for mobile computing. Mobile UNITY offers a computational milieu for examining a wide range of constructs and semantic alternatives in a clean abstract setting, i.e., unconstrained by compilation and performance considerations traditionally associated with programming language design. Ultimately, the notation offered by CODEWEAVE is given exact semantic definition by means of a direct mapping to the underlying Mobile UNITY model. The abstract and formal treatment of code mobility offered by CODEWEAVE establishes a technical foundation for examining competing proposals and for subsequent integration of some of the mobility constructs both at the language level and within middleware for mobility

Modeling Adaptation with Klaim

In recent years, it has been argued that systems and applications, in order to deal with their increasing complexity, should be able to adapt their behavior according to new requirements or environment conditions. In this paper, we present an investigation aiming at studying how coordination languages and formal methods can contribute to a better understanding, implementation and use of the mechanisms and techniques for adaptation currently proposed in the literature. Our study relies on the formal coordination language Klaim as a common framework for modeling some well-known adaptation techniques: the IBM MAPE-K loop, the Accord component-based framework for architectural adaptation, and the aspect- and context-oriented programming paradigms. We illustrate our approach through a simple example concerning a data repository equipped with an automated cache mechanism

Automated Mapping of UML Activity Diagrams to Formal Specifications for Supporting Containment Checking

Business analysts and domain experts are often sketching the behaviors of a software system using high-level models that are technology- and platform-independent. The developers will refine and enrich these high-level models with technical details. As a consequence, the refined models can deviate from the original models over time, especially when the two kinds of models evolve independently. In this context, we focus on behavior models; that is, we aim to ensure that the refined, low-level behavior models conform to the corresponding high-level behavior models. Based on existing formal verification techniques, we propose containment checking as a means to assess whether the system's behaviors described by the low-level models satisfy what has been specified in the high-level counterparts. One of the major obstacles is how to lessen the burden of creating formal specifications of the behavior models as well as consistency constraints, which is a tedious and error-prone task when done manually. Our approach presented in this paper aims at alleviating the aforementioned challenges by considering the behavior models as verification inputs and devising automated mappings of behavior models onto formal properties and descriptions that can be directly used by model checkers. We discuss various challenges in our approach and show the applicability of our approach in illustrative scenarios.Comment: In Proceedings FESCA 2014, arXiv:1404.043