A brief comparison of real-time software design methods

This paper briefly attempts to compare several mainstream methods/methodologies that are used for the analysis and design of real time systems. These are i) CORE, ii) YSM, iii) MASCOT, iv) CODARTS, v) HOOD, vi) ROOM, vii) UML, viii) UML-RT. Methods i-iii are use a data driven approach, whilst methods iv-vii use an object-oriented approach. All these methods have their advantages and disadvantages. Thus it is difficult to decide which method is best suited to a particular real-time design situation. Some methods like YSM, MASCOT and CODARTS are more oriented towards designing event driven systems and reactive behavior. Object oriented methods like the UML have many diagrams obtained from other methods. In the first part of the paper each method is briefly presented and its main features are explained. In the second part a score based ranking is used to try to identify which method has the best overall characteristics for real time development. The final results are presented in a tabular form and using a bar chart. In addition to this it is explained how each method fits in the SDLC. Both the score of each method and how it fits in the SDLC must be considered when selecting methods. To conclude some other issues are explained, because the selection of one method does not automatically imply that there will not be any problems.peer-reviewe

Real-time system design using preemption thresholds

As the real-time embedded systems encountered in applications such as telecommunications, aerospace, defense, and automatic control demand large, complex and multi-tasked software development, a new challenge has emerged for adopting the state-of-the-art software engineering technologies. Object-oriented design provides a scalable methodology with appropriate CASE tools for the design of software systems. Although these tools provides support for visual object-oriented modeling, design, simulation and code generation for general real-time systems, timing analysis is only available after the software is constructed. Consequently, the design-development process involving these tools in real-time systems becomes iterative and time-consuming. Introducing timing analysis in the design stage encounters a new problem. Traditional scheduling theory assumes a single level of task granularity. However, in industrial practice, common wisdom requires several design level tasks map into one run-time thread to reduce scheduling costs. This warrants a dual-level scheduling: preemptive scheduling between threads and non-preemptive scheduling between tasks in the same thread. Extending the scheduling theory to such an environment forms the scope of this thesis. Preemption threshold is introduced to control undesirable preemptions. Via a novel application of this concept, this thesis proposes a general scheduling model that subsumes both preemptive and non-preemptive scheduling models as special cases. The new theory deals with both independent and dependent tasks derivable from an object-oriented system model. Motivated by UML-RT modeling, the dependencies in our model include inter-task communication, resource sharing, and precedence. Important design issues covered include task priority and preemption threshold assignment and optimized task to thread mapping with respect of minimum scheduling cost and memory requirement. Quantitative performance evaluation is also conducted via simulation to validate the theory propose

An Analysis of Composability and Composition Anomalies

The separation of concerns principle aims at decomposing a given design problem into concerns that are mapped to multiple independent software modules. The application of this principle eases the composition of the concerns and as such supports composability. Unfortunately, a clean separation (and composition of concerns) at the design level does not always imply the composability of the concerns at the implementation level. The composability might be reduced due to limitations of the implementation abstractions and composition mechanisms. The paper introduces the notion of composition anomaly to describe a general set of unexpected composition problems that arise when mapping design concerns to implementation concerns. To distinguish composition anomalies from other composition problems the requirements for composability at the design level is provided. The ideas are illustrated for a distributed newsgroup system

On Agent-Based Software Engineering

Agent-based computing represents an exciting new synthesis both for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and, more generally, Computer Science. It has the potential to significantly improve the theory and the practice of modeling, designing, and implementing computer systems. Yet, to date, there has been little systematic analysis of what makes the agent-based approach such an appealing and powerful computational model. Moreover, even less effort has been devoted to discussing the inherent disadvantages that stem from adopting an agent-oriented view. Here both sets of issues are explored. The standpoint of this analysis is the role of agent-based software in solving complex, real-world problems. In particular, it will be argued that the development of robust and scalable software systems requires autonomous agents that can complete their objectives while situated in a dynamic and uncertain environment, that can engage in rich, high-level social interactions, and that can operate within flexible organisational structures

Two Case Studies of Subsystem Design for General-Purpose CSCW Software Architectures

This paper discusses subsystem design guidelines for the software architecture of general-purpose computer supported cooperative work systems, i.e., systems that are designed to be applicable in various application areas requiring explicit collaboration support. In our opinion, guidelines for subsystem level design are rarely given most guidelines currently given apply to the programming language level. We extract guidelines from a case study of the redesign and extension of an advanced commercial workflow management system and place them into the context of existing software engineering research. The guidelines are then validated against the design decisions made in the construction of a widely used web-based groupware system. Our approach is based on the well-known distinction between essential (logical) and physical architectures. We show how essential architecture design can be based on a direct mapping of abstract functional concepts as found in general-purpose systems to modules in the essential architecture. The essential architecture is next mapped to a physical architecture by applying software clustering and replication to achieve the required distribution and performance characteristics

An environment for object-oriented real-time system design

A concise object-oriented method for the development of real-time systems has been composed. Hardware components are modelled by (software) base objects; base objects are controlled by a hierarchy of coordinator objects, expressed in an organizational diagram. The behaviour of objects is specified by state transition diagrams. This approach considerably promotes requirements analysis and communication with the customer. A CASE tool has been constructed with diagram editors for graphical specifications of real-time systems. The tool can generate executable code for PLCs from these graphical specifications; reuse of previous results is supported by the repository function of the tool. Experiences attained in practice with method and tool show that time spent in system testing and installation is reduced considerabl

Generic unified modelling process for developing semantically rich, dynamic and temporal models

Models play a vital role in supporting a range of activities in numerous domains. We rely on models to support the design, visualisation, analysis and representation of parts of the world around us, and as such significant research effort has been invested into numerous areas of modelling; including support for model semantics, dynamic states and behaviour, temporal data storage and visualisation. Whilst these efforts have increased our capabilities and allowed us to create increasingly powerful software-based models, the process of developing models, supporting tools and /or data structures remains difficult, expensive and error-prone. In this paper we define from literature the key factors in assessing a model’s quality and usefulness: semantic richness, support for dynamic states and object behaviour, temporal data storage and visualisation. We also identify a number of shortcomings in both existing modelling standards and model development processes and propose a unified generic process to guide users through the development of semantically rich, dynamic and temporal models

Strategic Directions in Object-Oriented Programming

This paper has provided an overview of the field of object-oriented programming. After presenting a historical perspective and some major achievements in the field, four research directions were introduced: technologies integration, software components, distributed programming, and new paradigms. In general there is a need to continue research in traditional areas:\ud (1) as computer systems become more and more complex, there is a need to further develop the work on architecture and design; \ud (2) to support the development of complex systems, there is a need for better languages, environments, and tools; \ud (3) foundations in the form of the conceptual framework and other theories must be extended to enhance the means for modeling and formal analysis, as well as for understanding future computer systems