Frameworks for Interactive Software Development

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal: CCR-9988531 Principal Investigator: Graham, Susan L. Institution: University of California, Berkeley The Harmonia Framework for Interactive Software Development Both societal infrastructure and the economy depend on increasingly complex software systems. To create and maintain high-quality software, developers need software tools and services that enhance their productivity. The goal of this research is to devise the underlying technology that provides developers with integrated language-based interactive tools and services. The technology can be used to create multi-lingual and language-portable development environments or to create new tools for existing environments. The languages at issue are the myriad of formally-specified system architecture, specification, design, programming, scripting and command languages used by the developer. Better language tools make it easier to develop and use new domain-specific languages, and to extend development environments to dialects of existing languages. This research will address several aspects of interactive language-based software development. The starting point is an existing language-based framework that provides an annotated structural representation of programs, together with an embedded history of changes and support for incomplete or incorrect versions during the development process. This project will devise a method to improve the ease of formally specifying the semantics of languages, will create new analyses and transformation capabilities, and will create the means to integrate externally developed analyses and program manipulation services into the framework.