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

Reusability in software engineering

This paper surveys recent work concerning reusability in software engineering. The current directions in software reusability are discussed, and the two major approaches of reusable building blocks and reusable patterns studied. An extensive bibliography, parts of which are annotated, is included

Federated Embedded Systems – a review of the literature in related fields

This report is concerned with the vision of smart interconnected objects, a vision that has attracted much attention lately. In this paper, embedded, interconnected, open, and heterogeneous control systems are in focus, formally referred to as Federated Embedded Systems. To place FES into a context, a review of some related research directions is presented. This review includes such concepts as systems of systems, cyber-physical systems, ubiquitous computing, internet of things, and multi-agent systems. Interestingly, the reviewed fields seem to overlap with each other in an increasing number of ways

Strategic programming on graph rewriting systems

We describe a strategy language to control the application of graph rewriting rules, and show how this language can be used to write high-level declarative programs in several application areas. This language is part of a graph-based programming tool built within the port-graph transformation and visualisation environment PORGY.Comment: In Proceedings IWS 2010, arXiv:1012.533

Gaming security by obscurity

Shannon sought security against the attacker with unlimited computational powers: *if an information source conveys some information, then Shannon's attacker will surely extract that information*. Diffie and Hellman refined Shannon's attacker model by taking into account the fact that the real attackers are computationally limited. This idea became one of the greatest new paradigms in computer science, and led to modern cryptography. Shannon also sought security against the attacker with unlimited logical and observational powers, expressed through the maxim that "the enemy knows the system". This view is still endorsed in cryptography. The popular formulation, going back to Kerckhoffs, is that "there is no security by obscurity", meaning that the algorithms cannot be kept obscured from the attacker, and that security should only rely upon the secret keys. In fact, modern cryptography goes even further than Shannon or Kerckhoffs in tacitly assuming that *if there is an algorithm that can break the system, then the attacker will surely find that algorithm*. The attacker is not viewed as an omnipotent computer any more, but he is still construed as an omnipotent programmer. So the Diffie-Hellman step from unlimited to limited computational powers has not been extended into a step from unlimited to limited logical or programming powers. Is the assumption that all feasible algorithms will eventually be discovered and implemented really different from the assumption that everything that is computable will eventually be computed? The present paper explores some ways to refine the current models of the attacker, and of the defender, by taking into account their limited logical and programming powers. If the adaptive attacker actively queries the system to seek out its vulnerabilities, can the system gain some security by actively learning attacker's methods, and adapting to them?Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables; final version appeared in the Proceedings of New Security Paradigms Workshop 2011 (ACM 2011); typos correcte

Modular Composition of Language Features through Extensions of Semantic Language Models

Today, programming or specification languages are often extended in order to customize them for a particular application domain or to refine the language definition. The extension of a semantic model is often at the centre of such an extension. We will present a framework for linking basic and extended models. The example which we are going to use is the RSL concurrency model. The RAISE specification language RSL is a formal wide-spectrum specification language which integrates different features, such as state-basedness, concurrency and modules. The concurrency features of RSL are based on a refinement of a classical denotational model for process algebras. A modification was necessary to integrate state-based features into the basic model in order to meet requirements in the design of RSL. We will investigate this integration, formalising the relationship between the basic model and the adapted version in a rigorous way. The result will be a modular composition of the basic process model and new language features, such as state-based features or input/output. We will show general mechanisms for integration of new features into a language by extending language models in a structured, modular way. In particular, we will concentrate on the preservation of properties of the basic model in these extensions