https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00075711/document

The ESTEREL synchronous programming language: design, semantics, implementation

This thesis defines a set of program restructuring operations (refactorings) that support the design, evolution and reuse of object-oriented application frameworks.
The focus of the thesis is on automating the refactorings in a way that preserves the behavior of a program. The refactorings are defined to be behavior preserving, provided that their preconditions are met. Most of the refactorings are simple to implement and it is almost trivial to show that they are behavior preserving. However, for a few refactorings, one or more of their preconditions are in general undecidable. Fortunately, for some cases it can be determined whether these refactorings can be applied safely.
Three of the most complex refactorings are defined in detail: generalizing the inheritance hierarchy, specializing the inheritance hierarchy and using aggregations to model the relationships among classes. These operations are decomposed into more primitive parts, and the power of these operations is discussed from the perspectives of automatability and usefulness in supporting design.
Two design constraints needed in refactoring are class invariants and exclusive components. These constraints are needed to ensure that behavior is preserved across some refactorings. This thesis gives some conservative algorithms for determining whether a program satisfies these constraints, and describes how to use this design information to refactor a program.

Refactoring object-oriented frameworks

Nowadays, object-oriented meta-languages such as MOF (Meta-Object Facility) are increasingly used to specify domain-specific languages in the model-driven engineering community. However, these meta-languages focus on structural specifications and have no built-in support for specifications of operational semantics. In this paper we explore the idea of using aspect-oriented modeling to add precise action specifications with static type checking and genericity at the meta level, and examine related issues and possible solutions. We believe that such a combination would bring significant benefits to the community, such as the specification, simulation and testing of operational semantics of metamodels. We present requirements for such statically-typed meta-languages and rationales for the aforementioned benefits.

/pdf/weaving-executability-into-object-oriented-meta-languages-4k2ts37wcl.pdf

Weaving executability into object-oriented meta-languages

Spoofax is a language workbench for efficient, agile development of textual domain-specific languages with state-of-the-art IDE support. Spoofax integrates language processing techniques for parser generation, meta-programming, and IDE development into a single environment. It uses concise, declarative specifications for languages and IDE services. In this paper we describe the architecture of Spoofax and introduce idioms for high-level specifications of language semantics using rewrite rules, showing how analyses can be reused for transformations, code generation, and editor services such as error marking, reference resolving, and content completion. The implementation of these services is supported by language-parametric editor service classes that can be dynamically loaded by the Eclipse IDE, allowing new languages to be developed and used side-by-side in the same Eclipse environment.

/pdf/the-spoofax-language-workbench-rules-for-declarative-4u6ymeiivg.pdf

The spoofax language workbench: rules for declarative specification of languages and IDEs

The Kestrel Interactive Development System (KIDS), which provides automated support for the development of correct and efficient programs from formal specifications, is described. The system has components for performing algorithm design, deductive inference, program simplification, partial evaluation, finite differencing optimizations, data type refinement, compilation, and other development operations. Although their application is interactive, all of the KIDS operations are automatic except the algorithm design tactics, which require some interaction at present. Dozens of programs have been derived using the system, and it is believed that KIDS could be developed to the point where it becomes economical to use for routine programming. To illustrate the use of KIDS, the author traces the derivation of an algorithm for enumerating solutions to the k-queens problem. The initial algorithm that KIDS designed takes about 60 minutes on a SUN-4/110 to find all 92 solutions to the 8-queens problem instance. The final optimized version finds the same solutions in under one second. >

KIDS: a semiautomatic program development system

This paper describes the organization of the CENTAUR system and its main components. The system is a generic interactive environment. When given the formal specification of a particular programming language-including syntax and semantics — it produces a language specific environment. This resulting environment includes a structure editor, an interpreter/debugger and other tools, all of which have graphic interfaces. CENTAUR is made of three parts: a database component, that provides standardized representation and access to formal objects and their persistent storage; a logical engine that is used to execute formal specifications; an object-oriented man-machine interface that gives easy access to the system's functions. CENTAUR is essentially written in Lisp (Le_Lisp). The logical engine is Prolog (Mu-Prolog). The man-machine interface is built on top of the virtual graphics facility of Le_Lisp, itself primarily implemented on top of X-Windows.

https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00075774/document

V. Pascual

Papers

Centaur: the system