Interim research assessment 2003-2005 - Computer Science

This report primarily serves as a source of information for the 2007 Interim Research Assessment Committee for Computer Science at the three technical universities in the Netherlands. The report also provides information for others interested in our research activities

Object-Centric Reflection: Unifying Reflection and Bringing It Back to Objects

Reflective applications are able to query and manipulate the structure and behavior of a running system. This is essential for highly dynamic software that needs to interact with objects whose structure and behavior are not known when the application is written. Software analysis tools, like debuggers, are a typical example. Oddly, although reflection essentially concerns run-time entities, reflective applications tend to focus on static abstractions, like classes and methods, rather than objects. This is phenomenon we call the object paradox, which makes developers less effective by drawing their attention away from run-time objects. To counteract this phenomenon, we propose a purely object-centric approach to reflection. Reflective mechanisms provide object-specific capabilities as another feature. Object-centric reflection proposes to turn this around and put object-specific capabilities as the central reflection mechanism. This change in the reflection architecture allows a unification of various reflection mechanisms and a solution to the object paradox. We introduce Bifr\"ost, an object-centric reflective system based on first-class meta-objects. Through a series of practical examples we demonstrate how object-centric reflection mitigates the object paradox by avoiding the need to reflect on static abstractions. We survey existing approaches to reflection to establish key requirements in the domain, and we show that an object-centric approach simplifies the meta-level and allows a unification of the reflection field. We demonstrate how development itself is enhanced with this new approach: talents are dynamically composable units of reuse, and object-centric debugging prevents the object paradox when debugging. We also demonstrate how software analysis is benefited by object-centric reflection with Chameleon, a framework for building object-centric analysis tools and MetaSpy, a domain-specific profile

Co-Evolution of Source Code and the Build System: Impact on the Introduction of AOSD in Legacy Systems

Software is omnipresent in our daily lives. As users demand ever more advanced features, software systems have to keep on evolving. In practice, this means that software developers need to adapt the description of a software application. Such a description not only consists of source code written down in a programming language, as a lot of knowledge is hidden in lesser known software development artifacts, like the build system. As its name suggests, the build system is responsible for building an executable program, ready for use, from the source code. There are various indications that the evolution of source code is strongly related to that of the build system. When the source code changes, the build system has to co-evolve to safeguard the ability to build an executable program. A rigid build system on the other hand limits software developers. This phenomenon especially surfaces when drastic changes in the source code are coupled with an inflexible build system, as is the case for the introduction of AOSD technology in legacy systems. AOSD is a young software development approach which enables developers to structure and compose source code in a better way. Legacy systems are old software systems which are still mission-critical, but of which the source code and the build system are no longer fully understood, and which typically make use of old(-fashioned) technology. This PhD dissertation focuses on finding an explanation for this co-evolution of source code and the build system, and on finding developer support to grasp and manage this phenomenon. We postulate four "roots of co-evolution" which represent four different ways in which source code and the build system interact with each other. Based on these roots, we have developed tool and aspect language support to understand and manage co-evolution. The roots and the tool support have been validated in case studies, both in the context of co-evolution in general and of the introduction of AOSD technology in legacy systems. The dissertation experimentally shows that co-evolution indeed is a real problem, but that specific software development and aspect language support enables developers to deal with it

Improving Reuse of Distributed Transaction Software with Transaction-Aware Aspects

Implementing crosscutting concerns for transactions is difficult, even using Aspect-Oriented Programming Languages (AOPLs) such as AspectJ. Many of these challenges arise because the context of a transaction-related crosscutting concern consists of loosely-coupled abstractions like dynamically-generated identifiers, timestamps, and tentative value sets of distributed resources. Current AOPLs do not provide joinpoints and pointcuts for weaving advice into high-level abstractions or contexts, like transaction contexts. Other challenges stem from the essential complexity in the nature of the data, operations on the data, or the volume of data, and accidental complexity comes from the way that the problem is being solved, even using common transaction frameworks. This dissertation describes an extension to AspectJ, called TransJ, with which developers can implement transaction-related crosscutting concerns in cohesive and loosely-coupled aspects. It also presents a preliminary experiment that provides evidence of improvement in reusability without sacrificing the performance of applications requiring essential transactions. This empirical study is conducted using the extended-quality model for transactional application to define measurements on the transaction software systems. This quality model defines three goals: the first relates to code quality (in terms of its reusability); the second to software performance; and the third concerns software development efficiency. Results from this study show that TransJ can improve the reusability while maintaining performance of TransJ applications requiring transaction for all eight areas addressed by the hypotheses: better encapsulation and separation of concern; loose Coupling, higher-cohesion and less tangling; improving obliviousness; preserving the software efficiency; improving extensibility; and hasten the development process

Distributed aop middleware for large-scale scenarios

En aquesta tesi doctoral presentem una proposta de middleware distribuït pel desenvolupament d'aplicacions de gran escala. La nostra motivació principal és permetre que les responsabilitats distribuïdes d'aquestes aplicacions, com per exemple la replicació, puguin integrar-se de forma transparent i independent. El nostre enfoc es basa en la implementació d'aquestes responsabilitats mitjançant el paradigma d'aspectes distribuïts i es beneficia dels substrats de les xarxes peer-to-peer (P2P) i de la programació orientada a aspectes (AOP) per realitzar-ho de forma descentralitzada, desacoblada, eficient i transparent. La nostra arquitectura middleware es divideix en dues capes: un model de composició i una plataforma escalable de desplegament d'aspectes distribuïts. Per últim, es demostra la viabilitat i aplicabilitat del nostre model mitjançant la implementació i experimentació de prototipus en xarxes de gran escala reals.In this PhD dissertation we present a distributed middleware proposal for large-scale application development. Our main aim is to separate the distributed concerns of these applications, like replication, which can be integrated independently and transparently. Our approach is based on the implementation of these concerns using the paradigm of distributed aspects. In addition, our proposal benefits from the peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and aspect-oriented programming (AOP) substrates to provide these concerns in a decentralized, decoupled, efficient, and transparent way. Our middleware architecture is divided into two layers: a composition model and a scalable deployment platform for distributed aspects. Finally, we demonstrate the viability and applicability of our model via implementation and experimentation of prototypes in real large-scale networks

Abstraction over non-local object information in aspect-oriented programming using path expression pointcuts

Aspect-oriented software development (AOSD) consists of a number of technologies that promise a better level of modularization of concerns that cannot be separated in individual modules by using conventional techniques. Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is one of these technologies. It allows the modularization at the level of software application code. It provides programmers with means to quantify over specific points in the base application code, called join points, at which the crosscutting concern code must be triggered. The quantification is achieved by special selection constructs called pointcuts, while the triggered code that is responsible for adapting the selected join point is provided by special construct called advice. The selection and adaptation mechanisms in aspect-oriented programming depend heavily on the distinguishing properties of the join points. These properties can either be derived from the local execution context at the join point or they are considered to be non-local to the join point. Aspect-oriented systems provide a plenty of pointcut constructs that support accessing the local join point properties, while they rarely support the non-local properties. A large research effort has been achieved to extend current aspectoriented systems in order to solve the problem of non-locality. However, none of these proposals support the non-local object relationships. There are many situations where a good abstraction over nonlocal object information is needed, otherwise, the developers will be obliged to provide complex and error-prone workarounds inside advice body that conceptually do not reflect the semantics of join point selection and mix it with the semantics of join point daptation. Such recurrent situations occur when trying to modularize the object persistence concern. Object persistence, the process of storing and retrieving objects to and from the datastore, is a classical example of crosscutting concern. Orthogonal object persistence meets the obliviousness property of AOP: The base code should not be prepared upfront for persistence. This thesis addresses the shortcomings in current aspect-oriented persistence systems. It shows that the reason for such shortcomings is due to the lack of supporting non-local object information by the used aspect-oriented languages. To overcome this problem, this thesis proposes a new extension to the current pointcut languages called path expression pointcuts that operate on object graphs and make relevant object information available to the aspects. As an explicit and complete construct, a formal semantics and type system have provided. Moreover, an implementation of path expression pointcuts is discussed in the thesis along with its usage to show how the aforementioned problems are resolved

Un modèle de programmation intégrant classes, événements et aspects

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) has become the de facto programming paradigm. Event-Based Programming (EBP) and Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) complement OOP, covering some of its deficiencies when building complex software. Today's applications combine the three paradigms. However, OOP, EBP and AOP have not yet been properly integrated. Their underlying concepts are in general provided as distinct language constructs, whereas they are not completely orthogonal. This lack of integration and orthogonality complicates the development of software as it reduces its understandability, its composability and increases the required glue code. This thesis proposes an integration of OOP, EBP and AOP leading to a simple and regular programming model. This model integrates the notions of class and aspect, the notions of event and join point, and the notions of piece of advice, method and event handler. It re- duces the number of language constructs while keeping expressiveness and offering additional programming options. We have designed and implemented two programming languages based on this model: EJava and ECaesarJ. EJava is an extension of Java implementing the model. We have validated the expressiveness of this language by implementing a well-known graphical editor, JHotDraw, reducing its glue code and improving its design. ECaesarJ is an extension of CaesarJ that combines our model with mixins and language support for state machines. This combination was shown to greatly facilitate the implementation of a smart home application, an industrial- strength case study that aims to coordinate different devices in a house and automatize their behaviors.Le paradigme de la programmation par objets (PPO) est devenu le paradigme de programmation le plus utilisé. La programmation événementielle (PE) et la programmation par aspects (PPA) complètent la PPO en comblant certaines de ses lacunes lors de la construction de logiciels complexes. Les applications actuelles combinent ainsi les trois paradigmes. Toutefois, la POO, la PE et la POA ne sont pas encore bien intégrées. Leurs concepts sous-jacents sont en général fournis sous la forme de constructions syntaxiques spécifiques malgré leurs points communs. Ce manque d'intégration et d'orthogonalité complique les logiciels car il réduit leur compréhensibilité et leur composabilité, et augmente le code d'infrastructure. Cette thèse propose une intégration de la PPO, de la PE et de la PPA conduisant à un modèle de programmation simple et régulier. Ce modèle intègre les notions de classe et d'aspect, les notions d'événement et de point de jonction, et les notions d'action, de méthode et de gestionnaire d'événements. Il réduit le nombre de constructions tout en gardant l'expressivité initiale et en offrant même des options de programmation supplémentaires. Nous avons conçu et mis en œuvre deux langages de programmation basés sur ce modèle : EJava et ECaesarJ. EJava est une extension de Java implémentant le modèle. Nous avons validé l'expressivité de ce langage par la mise en œuvre d'un éditeur graphique bien connu, JHotDraw, en réduisant le code d'infrastructure nécessaire et en améliorant sa conception. ECaesarJ est une extension de CaesarJ qui combine notre modèle avec de la composition de mixins et un support linguistique des machines à états. Cette combinaison a grandement facilité la mise en œuvre d'une application de maison intelligente, une étude de cas d'origine industrielle dans le domaine de la domotique

Composition non modulaire modulaire

This document survey my different research activities since I have defended my PhD. Thesis. The thread of these work is my fascination for modular programming but also its limits when there is not a single modular decomposition but several decompositions that must coexist. These researches are structured according to several axes: control and data flow, static and dynamic behavior, sequential, concurrent and distributed context.Ce document retrace mes différentes activités de recherche depuis ma thèse. Le fil conducteur de ces travaux est ma fascination pour la programmation modulaire mais aussi ses limites lorsque qu'il n'existe pas une décomposition modulaire d'un problème mais plusieurs décompositions qui doivent coexister. Ces recherches sont déclinées selon plusieurs axes : flot de contrôle et flot de données, comportements statiques et dynamiques, contextes séquentiels, concurrents et distribués