Flexible Heterogeneous Software Systems - CWI Amsterdam | Research

192 Pages·2006·1.62 MB·English

Flexible Heterogeneous Software Systems
ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT
ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor
aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam
op gezag van de Rector Magnificus
prof. mr. P.F. van der Heijden
ten overstaan van een door het
college voor promoties ingestelde commissie,
in het openbaar te verdedigen
in de Aula der Universiteit
op donderdag 1 februari 2007, te 10.00 uur
door
Hayco Alexander de Jong
geboren te Zaandam
Promotor: prof. dr. P.Klint
Co-promotor: prof. dr. M.G.J.vandenBrand
Faculteit: Natuurwetenschappen,WiskundeenInformatica
The work in this thesis has been carried out at Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informa-
tica(CWI)inAmsterdamundertheauspicesoftheresearchschoolIPA(Institutefor
ProgrammingresearchandAlgorithmics).
Acknowledgements
FirstofallIwouldliketothankPaulKlintforhisconstructiveandinspiringmen-
torship. Youwerealwaystheretodiscussanyresearchideas,andhelpedme(re-)focus
whenIgotlostinmyowntrainofthoughts,withoutevergivingmethefeelingIwas
forced to see things your way. Thank you for giving me both the guidance and the
freedomIneededtocompletethisthesis!
Next I thank Mark van den Brand who, through his own perseverance, motivated
metogoonattimeswhenIwasreadytopulltheplug. Yourongoingdesiretoextend
andimprovetheMeta-Environmentultimatelysparkedmyideasforthecurrentplug-in
architecture. Also, youandyourwifeJose´ madethebestkinderboerderijstewIever
had! ;-)
Iwouldliketothankthemembersofthereadingcommitteeforreadingthisthesis
andforprovidingvaluable feedback: prof. dr. UweAßmann, prof. dr. JanBergstra,
prof. dr. MartinKersten,prof. dr. ir. KoosRooda,prof. dr. HansvanVliet.
ManythanksalsotoAlbertHofkampforthoroughlyreadingmythesis,andgiving
mevaluablefeedback.
MyfriendshipwithPieterOlivierhasgrownduringmythesisyearsinmanyways.
In a professional way, together with Maud Olivier-Weddepohl, we are now real busi-
nesspartners. ButIalsoenjoyedallthesocialthingsweshared,suchasourinterestin
gamingandhiking. Forthecompletionofthisthesiswehavesharedmanymotivating
talks while exploring and enjoying the wonderful Veluwe at the same time. Thanks
for all your support so far, and may our way of life and view on matters remain as
compatibleformanyyearstocome,astheyarenow!
HadInotmetTaekeKooikeratCWI,thecomputerIusedtowritethisthesiswould
have been another MyCom product. Instead, I now know exactly how to build (and
have built) my own computer from various hardware components. Not only have we
spentmanyhoursworkingtogetheronSEN1software,wealsosharedmanyexciting
discussionsonothertopics,allofwhichIreallyenjoyed,andwhichhaveenrichedmy
life.
In the past six years at CWI, many people have at some point been part of the
SEN1 research group. They have all contributed in one way or another to my thesis.
Discussionsinthehallway,sharingresearchviewsoverlunch,havingcakeandcoffee
together, (re-)using each others software. The open and harmonious way we worked
togetherinSEN1,withampleroomforconstructivecriticism,hasalwaysinspiredand
motivatedmeverymuch.
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Finally,Iwanttothankallthepeoplewhoarenotdirectlyrelatedtothemakingof
thisthesis,butwhohaveenduredmyantics,whohadtoputupwithmybadmoods,had
theirfriendshipstemporarilysuspendedwhileIwrestledwithmyself,andforenduring
otherHaycoisms.IwanttothankmyMomforherunfailingsupportduringthesethesis
years,andmyclosefriendsEggievanBuiten,Jean-PierreNibbelink,MaudWeddepohl
(err,Olivier),RubenLaane,andMeriamNibbelinkforbeingtherewhenIneededthem
—eachintheirownway. Thanks!
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Contents
I Overview 1
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Softwarere-use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1.1 SoftwareArchitecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.2 Component-basedsoftwareengineering . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.1.3 Middleware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.1.4 SoftwareProductlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1.5 Variability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2 TheDecouplingParadox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.1 TheUNIXpipeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.2 TheToolBuscoordinationarchitecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3 ResearchContext . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4 ResearchQuestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.5 RelatedWork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.6 OutlineandOriginoftheChapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.7 AbouttheImplementations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
II StructuringComponentData 17
2 ATerms 19
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2 ATermsataGlance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2.1 TheATermDataType . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2.2 OperationsonATerms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3.1 Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3.2 MaximalSharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.3.3 GarbageCollection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3.4 TermEncoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3.5 ATermExchange: theBinaryATermFormat . . . . . . . . . 31
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2.4 PerformanceMeasurements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.4.1 Benchmarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.4.2 Measurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.4.3 SummaryofMeasurements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.5 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.5.1 RepresentingSyntaxTrees: AsFixandCasFix . . . . . . . . 39
2.5.2 ASF+SDFMeta-Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.5.3 ASF+SDFtoCcompiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.5.4 OtherApplications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.6.1 RelatedWork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.6.2 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.6.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3 GenerationofAbstractProgrammingInterfacesfromSyntaxDefinitions 47
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.1.1 RelatedWork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.1.2 ASF+SDFinanutshell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.1.3 AnnotatedTerms: theATermsyntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.1.4 ASF+SDFParseTreesforDummies: AsFixexplained . . . . 53
3.2 AccessingATermDataTypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.2.1 AccessingATermsusingtheLevelOneinterface . . . . . . . 55
3.2.2 AccessingATermsusingtheLevelTwointerface . . . . . . . 56
3.2.3 AccessingAsFixparsetrees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.2.4 Maintenanceissues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.3 FromsyntaxtoAPI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.3.1 DerivingtheADTfromaSDFspecification . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.4 CodegenerationfromADTtoC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.4.1 Generatedtypesandfunctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.4.2 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.5 SoftwareengineeringbenefitsintheMeta-Environment . . . . . . . . 67
3.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.7 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.8 Futurework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
III StructuringComponentInteraction 71
4 ToolBus: theNextGeneration 73
4.1 GenericLanguageTechnology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.1.1 OneRealization: theASF+SDFMeta-Environment . . . . . . 73
4.1.2 TowardsaComponentBasedArchitecture . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.1.3 PlanofthisChapter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.2 TheToolBusArchitecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.3 AnExample: theAddressBookService . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.3.1 ToolBusProcessesfortheAddressBookService . . . . . . . 79
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4.3.2 ToolBusProcessfortheUserInterface. . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.4 ApplicationtotheASF+SDFMeta-Environment . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.5 IssuesinaNext-GenerationToolBus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.5.1 UndisciplinedMessagePatterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.5.2 ExceptionHandling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.5.3 Call-By-ValueVersusCall-By-Reference . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.5.4 RelatedFrameworks: JavaRMI,RMI-IIOPandJavaIDL. . . 88
4.6 CurrentStatus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
4.7 ConcludingRemarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5 MyFavoriteEditorAnywhere 95
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.1.2 Relatedwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.2 Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.2.1 Requirementsandconsiderations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.2.2 Editor-independentdesign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.2.3 Editor-specificdesign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.2.4 Executionmodels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.3 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.3.1 EditorMultiplexer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.3.2 EditorConnectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.3.3 Glueingitalltogether . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5.4 DiscussionandFuturework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6 SoftwareSystemExtensibility 105
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
6.1.1 ResearchContext . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
6.1.2 ResearchQuestions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.1.3 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.2 TheMozillaSoftwareSuite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
6.2.1 MozillaThemes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
6.2.2 MozillaPlug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
6.2.3 MozillaExtensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.2.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.3 TheEclipseplatform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
6.3.1 Extensionparticipantsandroles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
6.3.2 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
6.3.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
6.4 TheJavaPlug-inFramework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
6.4.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
6.5 Winamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
6.5.1 WinampThemes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
6.5.2 WinampPlug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
6.5.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
6.6 ExtensionMechanismComparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
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6.6.1 Decoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
6.6.2 Delegation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
6.6.3 Mediation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
6.6.4 Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
6.7 APlug-inArchitecturefortheMeta-Environment . . . . . . . . . . . 118
6.7.1 ExtensionmechanismsintheMeta-Environment . . . . . . . 119
6.7.2 TheBasicGUIFramework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
6.7.3 Example: simpleclock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6.7.4 Extension: Allowingcommunicationtoaplug-in . . . . . . . 123
6.7.5 Extension: Allowingcommunicationfromaplug-in . . . . . 124
6.7.6 Extension: Allowinginter-plug-incommunication . . . . . . 125
6.8 Currentplug-insintheMeta-Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
6.8.1 Someplug-instatistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.8.2 TheERRORplug-ininterface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.8.3 Plug-ininteractionintheMeta-Environment . . . . . . . . . 133
6.9 SummaryandConclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
6.9.1 Plug-inTechniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
6.9.2 Plug-ininteraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
6.9.3 TheToolBusinaPlug-inFramework . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
6.9.4 ImpactontheASF+SDFMeta-Environment . . . . . . . . . 138
6.9.5 Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
IV Conclusion 141
7 Conclusions 143
7.1 Spaceefficient,type-safedataexchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
7.2 BuildinganIDEusingacoordinationarchitecture . . . . . . . . . . . 144
7.2.1 ComponentcoordinationtechniquesforanIDE . . . . . . . . 144
7.2.2 Usingoff-the-shelfcomponentsinarobustway . . . . . . . . 145
7.2.3 AcentralGUIfordecoupledcomponents . . . . . . . . . . . 145
7.2.4 ApplicabilityConsiderations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
7.3 FutureWork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
7.3.1 Applicationwidetype-safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
7.3.2 AboutToolBusandplug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
A SyntaxandInterfaceofATerms 153
A.1 ConcreteSyntaxofATerms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
A.1.1 ATerms.sdf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
A.1.2 IntCon.sdf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
A.1.3 RealCon.sdf. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
A.1.4 StrCon.sdf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
A.1.5 IdentifierCon.sdf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
A.1.6 NatCon.sdf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
A.1.7 Whitespace.sdf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
A.2 Level2interfaceforATerms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
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B 159
B.1 ConcreteSyntaxofAsFix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
B.1.1 Parsetree.sdf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
B.1.2 Tree.sdf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
B.1.3 Annotations.sdf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
B.1.4 Symbol.sdf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
B.1.5 Attributes.sdf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
B.2 Examplegenerateddictionaryfile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
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