Unveiling and taming liabilities of aspects in the presence of exceptions: A static analysis based approach

As aspects extend or replace existing functionality at specific join points in the code, their behavior may raise new exceptions, which can flow through the program execution in unexpected ways. Assuring the reliability of exception handling code in aspect-oriented (AO) systems is a challenging task. Testing the exception handling code is inherently difficult, since it is tricky to provoke all exceptions during tests, and the large number of different exceptions that can happen in a system may lead to the test-case explosion problem. Moreover, we have observed that some properties of AO programming (e.g., quantification, obliviousness) may conflict with characteristics of exception handling mechanisms, exacerbating existing problems (e.g., uncaught exceptions). The lack of verification approaches for exception handling code in AO systems stimulated the present work. This work presents a verification approach based on a static analysis tool, called SAFE, to check the reliability of exception handling code in AspectJ programs. We evaluated the effectiveness and feasibility of our approach in two complementary ways (i) by investigating if the SAFE tool is precise enough to uncover exception flow information and (ii) by applying the approach to three medium-sized ApectJ systems from different application domains.     

Extending PL/I for structured programming

General principles of structured programming, and practical aspects of applying those principles within the programming language PL/I, are discussed. Suitable extensions (and contractions) of that language are suggested.     

HADES—A command environment that supports structure

HADES is a command program designed to aid programmers and authors involved in writing systems with an inherently high degree of structuring. It presents the system being developed in a hierarchical fashion, encouraging a top down approach to its design, and alleviates many of the problems experienced with traditional filing systems. Unlike other programming environment systems, the utility programs and tools do not have to be ‘integrated’ into the system, which means that new and existing tools can be quickly and easily added. This results in a rich set of operations implemented at very low cost. The paper outlines some of the problems that arise with traditional filing systems from the point of view of software development, and then presents the approach adopted by HADES. This is followed by a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the result and some reflections on the lessons that have been learnt.     

PIGS—A system for programming with interactive graphical support

This paper describes an implementation of a system for programming using structured charts with interactive graphical support. It provides a graphical editor for the user to interactively build and edit programs using Nassi-Shneiderman diagrams (NSD)¹ as the structured control constructs of logic flow. It can interpret a program in NSD chart form, and the execution sequence of the NSD is displayed at a graphical terminal. On-line debugging and testing facilities are available which allow the user to examine and modify the program under execution. The system has been designed with the aim of supporting the development, debugging, testing, documentation and maintenance of programs in the same environment.     

A review of design techniques for programs and data

The proliferation of papers on programming methodology focus on the program development process but only hint at the form of the final program. This paper distinguishes between the development process and the program product and presents a catalogue of possible program organizations and data structures with examples drawn from the published literature. The methods for sharing data among modules and a classification scheme for programs and data structures is presented.     

Ada语言的发展

Ada语言诞生于1979年,1980年被指定为美国军用标准,1983年被正式确立为ISO标准并投入使用。Ada所追求的主要目标是:程序的可靠性与可维护性、程序设计作为人的活动(强调程序可读性比可写性更重要)以及效率。Ada凭借其强大的功能、良好的可靠性以及对软件工程思想的优良体现在20世纪最后20年对程序设计语言的发展产生了重要影响。Ada广泛应用于高可靠、长生存期的大型软件研发,在军事、商业、公共交通、金融等领域的核心软件开发中发挥着重要作用。诸多欧美国家的国防与空中管制系统、交通运输系统、银行安全防卫系统等均使用Ada语言研制开发。迄今为止,国际标准组织先后确立过Ada 83,Ada 95,Ada 2005,Ada 2012等4个语言标准,新标准在旧标准的基础上均保持了良好的兼容性。从语言机制、应用、影响力等方面对Ada语言的发展进行全面的介绍和分析。     

Joyce—A programming language for distributed systems

This paper describes a secure programming language called Joyce based on CSP and Pascal. Joyce permits unbounded (recursive) activation of communicating agents. The agents exchange messages through synchronous channels. A channel can transfer messages of different types between two or more agents. A compiler can check message types and ensure that agents use disjoint sets of variables only. The use of Joyce is illustrated by a variety of examples.     

Parametric design optimization of 2-DOF R–R planar manipulator—A design of experiment approach

This work illustrates simulation approach for optimizing the parametric design and performance of a 2-DOF R–R planar manipulator. Using dynamic and kinematic models of a manipulator different performance measures for the manipulator are obtained for different combination of parameters with effect of noise incorporated to imitate the real time performance of the manipulator. A novel approach has been proposed to model, the otherwise difficult to model, noise effects. The data generated during simulation for various parameter combinations are utilized to analyze the statistical significance of kinematic and dynamic parameters on performance of manipulator using ANOVA technique. The parameter combinations, which give optimum performance measures obtained for different points in workspace, are compared and reported.