An Experiment in Porting a Prototype Multiple Language Change Management System to a Highly Portable Language
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Authors
Miller, Brian J.S.
Issue Date
1996
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
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Abstract
Modularity and reusability are two of the main
principles the age of object oriented programming has brought
into the forefront of computer programming. They have opened
the door for the creation of many software libraries and
class libraries in which programmers can use pre-coded
objects in their software without having to go through the
difficulties of coding them themselves. However, the sad
fact is, when programmers translate or update their
applications from an older language into one or more new
languages, or update existing code, the reusability and
modularity are often lost. Thus, the process of translating
and updating can over-burden the programmer.
The difficulties in maintaining an object oriented class
library arise because of inherent differences between
language semantics. The programmers are forced to ask
whether a change should be made in only one version, selected
versions, or all the versions as the library is edited and
improved. In making these decisions, the programmers must
take into account semantic differences, as well as benefits
that may be language-specific. This task is called version-maintenance,
and when it is taken into· consideration, the
task often becomes too troublesome to even consider. This is
the crux of the problem of maintaining multiple versions of
the same class library in parallel.
While it is not common practice amongst programmers, it
can be useful to use a standardized definition language to
describe the methods and functionality of a certain class. In
what is called a service definition, programmers can asses
the functionality of class library components before they
attempt to program this class in multiple languages.
Specifically, a service definition is an axiomatic
description of the essential functions and conditions for the
library. However, if service definitions are used as a
viable assistant, a new problem arises, that of maintaining
the associations between the service definitions and the
language versions. A maintenance component that fulfills the
needs of a service-definition-based system must fulfill four
basic roles -- supporter, editor, displayer, and maintainer.
This research describes an experiment to implement a
hypertext maintenance component that supports all four roles.
Description
iii, 36 p.
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