Integrating CBSE, SoC, MDA, and AOP in a Software Development Method

Component-Based Software Engineering, Separation of Concerns, Model-Driven Architecture, and Aspect-Oriented Programming are four active research areas that have been around for several years now. In this paper, we present how these four paradigms can be put together in the context of a new software development method and we show how they can complement each other at different stages in the development life-cycle of enterprise, middleware-mediated applications. Different software development methods, such as Fondue, Catalysis, KobrA, and the Rational Unified Process, are also analyzed, pointing out their differences and limitations. In the end, requirements for a dedicated tool infrastructure that would support the new development approach are discussed

Generic Concern-Oriented Model Transformations Meet AOP

Abstract. Separation of concerns allows developers to manage large distributed systems by tackling one problem at a time. Model transformations refine models along one concern-dimension. Aspects encapsulate implementation details that cut across the boundaries of several components. In this position paper, after a short introduction to these emerging technologies, we explain how generic concern-oriented model transformations can meet aspect-oriented programming in order to complete the life-cycle of software application development in a pure MDA-compliant way based on separation of concerns. At the end, we present some requirements that tool vendors should provide if they decide to support such an approach

Towards an aspect weaving BPEL engine

This position paper proposes the use of dynamic aspects and the visitor design pattern to obtain a highly configurable and extensible BPEL engine. Using these two techniques, the core of this infrastructural software can be customised to meet new requirements and add features such as debugging, execution monitoring, or changing to another Web Service selection policy. Additionally, it can easily be extended to cope with customer-specific BPEL extensions. We propose the use of dynamic aspects not only on the engine itself but also on the workflow in order to tackle the problems of Web Service hot deployment and hot fixes to long running processes. In this way, composing aWeb Service "on-the-fly" means weaving its choreography interface into the workflow

Initial CONNECT Architecture

Interoperability remains a fundamental challenge when connecting heterogeneous systems which encounter and spontaneously communicate with one another in pervasive computing environments. This challenge is exasperated by the highly heterogeneous technologies employed by each of the interacting parties, i.e., in terms of hardware, operating system, middleware protocols, and application protocols. The key aim of the CONNECT project is to drop this heterogeneity barrier and achieve universal interoperability. Here we report on the development of the overall CONNECT architecture that will underpin this solution; in this respect, we present the following contributions: i) an elicitation of interoperability requirements from a set of pervasive computing scenarios, ii) a survey of existing solutions to interoperability, iii) an initial view of the CONNECT architecture, and iv) a series of experiments to provide initial validation of the architecture

Concrete syntax definition for modeling languages

Model Driven Engineering (MDE) promotes the use of models as primary artefacts of a software development process, as an attempt to handle complexity through abstraction, e.g. to cope with the evolution of execution platforms. MDE follows a stepwise approach, by prescribing to develop abstract models further improved to integrate little by little details relative to the final deployment platforms. Thus, the application of an MDE process results in various models residing at various levels of abstraction. Each one of these models is expressed in a modeling language, in which one may find appropriate concepts for the abstraction level considered. Many advocate to use the right (modeling) language for the right purpose. This means that it is sometimes better approach to use small languages specific to the considered domain and abstraction level, than to use general purpose languages (e.g. UML) when they do not perfectly fit the (modeling) needs. As a matter of fact, an MDE development process, which involves many different domains and abstraction levels, should also involve a large variety of modeling languages. Project managers who want to apply an MDE process need to deal with this language proliferation to such an extent that, in the long run, one may infer that language engineers can become major actors of software development teams. We believe that comprehensive modeling language management facilities may considerably alleviate that MDE drawback. Such facilities may include modeling language definition, extension, adaptation, or composition. To define a (modeling) language, one needs to define its abstract syntax, its semantics, and one or more concrete syntaxes. This thesis focuses on concrete syntax definition for modeling languages, when the abstract syntax is given in the form of a metamodel. We will provide solutions both for textual and graphical concrete syntaxes. Some of our experiences in building textual languages (as MTL, a model transformation language), and graphical languages (as Netsilon, a web-application modeler) has shown that a lot of work was spent in implementing interface using traditional techniques, be it a text processor generated from a compiler compiler specification, or a modeler making use of modern 2D graphical libraries. Indeed, abstract and concrete syntax were implemented in a disconnected way, and it was then necessary to assemble them, which became rapidly clumsy while abstract syntax evolved. We built our solution to concrete syntax definition as companions of the abstract syntax. The definition of concrete syntax we propose here made it possible to build automatic tools able to analyze or synthesize models from/to text, and to create graphical modelers. We will present a metamodel for textual concrete syntax definition to construct constructive reversible grammars. We will also propose a technique for graphical concrete syntax definition following a two-step process: specification and realization. Specification is a restrictive approach in which a metamodel defines a graphical concrete syntax. Both relations with abstract syntax and spatial relationships are expressed by means of constraints. The realization step proposes a way to provide the concrete syntax tree a meaning, by attributing it a graphical appearance, and by expressing possible user interactions. The structure of the document is the following. After introducing in deeper details the problem and the general structure of the solution we propose, we will take a tour of MDE, text and graph grammars. Then, we will present Netsilon as an example of an MDE tool to MDE development, which required both the definition of a graphical and a textual modeling language. The two following sections will present the solutions we propose for textual and graphical concrete syntax definition, respectively. Final remarks and possible improvements, especially regarding reusability in general of MDE meta-artifacts (like metamodels or model transformations), and of concrete syntax in particular, will conclude the document