This thesis presents research to build and evaluate embedding of a textual form of state machines into high-level programming languages. The work entailed adding state machine syntax and code generation to the Umple model-oriented programming technology. The added concepts include states, transitions, actions, and composite states as found in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). This approach allows software developers to take advantage of the modeling abstractions in their textual environments, without sacrificing the value added of visual modeling. Our efforts in developing state machines in Umple followed a test-driven approach to ensure high quality and usability of the technology. We have also developed a syntax-directed editor for Umple, similar to those available to other high-level programming languages. We conducted a grounded theory study of Umple users and used the findings iteratively to guide our experimental development. Finally, we conducted a controlled experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach. By enhancing the code to be almost as expressive as the model, we further support model-code duality; the notion that both model and code are two faces for the same coin. Systems can be and should be equally-well specified textually and diagrammatically. Such duality will benefit both modelers and coders alike. Our work suggests that code enhanced with state machine modeling abstractions is semantically equivalent to visual state machine models. The flow of the thesis is as follows; the research hypothesis and questions are presented in “Chapter 1: Introduction”. The background is explored in “Chapter 2: Background”. “Chapter 3: Syntax and semantics of simple state machines” and “Chapter 4: Syntax and semantics of composite state machines” investigate simple and composite state machines in Umple, respectively. “Chapter 5: Implementation of composite state machines” presents the approach we adopt for the implementation of composite state machines that avoids explosion of the amount of generated code. From this point on, the thesis presents empirical work. A grounded theory study is presented in “Chapter 6: A Grounded theory study of Umple”, followed by a controlled experiment in “Chapter 7: Experimentation”. These two chapters constitute our validation and evaluation of Umple research. Related and future work is presented in “Chapter 8: Related work”.

Aspects are units of aspect oriented programming developed for influencing the software behavior. In order to use an aspect confidently in any software, first it should be verified. For verification of an aspect, the mock classes for the original software should be prepared. These mock classes are a model of the aspect environment which the aspect is woven. In this study, considering that there are not enough tools for supporting the aspect oriented programming developers, we have developed a tool for enabling aspect verification and unit testing. The tool enables verification by generating the general environment of the aspect. By this tool the users are ensured to focus on the verification of aspects isolated from woven software.

The study of architectural parameterization has long neglected other parameterizations in favour of code selector descriptions. In this dissertation, we are concerned with providing linguistic notations for modelling architectures with special emphasis on translation. We focus on high level descriptions to aid code selection and storage allocation. The view taken in the thesis is that a description specializes a framework with a particular architecture. Independently, the framework must support other translation algorithms without constraining their freedom or forcing them towards architecture-specific idioms. The first contribution is an architectural description language with features tuned towards better parameterizability. Emphasis is laid on addressing site (compile time) parameterizability. Within the notation, the type system of the machine is decoupled from that of the language with the mapping being left to the user as a compile-time parameterization. This gives one more degree of freedom for the user to decide on the precision required based on the available realizations. We also give adequate representation to addressing modes. They are considered to be almost equivalent to operations in complexity. This makes the specification simpler for operations. From the framework's perspective, as a second contribution, we propose an algorithm for maintaining registers during allocation. Register allocation algorithms depend on the framework to inform them when registers are exhausted. In such a situation, we pro- pose an adaptation of bipartite graph matching to keep track of register usage during translation in the presence of architec- tural constraints. The research also aims at structuring both the specification and software to prevent the closed-syntax bottle- neck of a lot of specification languages. We also describe the architecture of the implementation in terms of a very flexible model called the blackboard model.

編輯器針對標的語言提供的編輯輔助，能夠幫助使用者縮短輸入的過程，並且避免輸入的錯誤。然而此種編輯器開發不易，因此大多數特定領域語言(Domain Specific Language)並無提供編輯輔助的專屬編輯器。Eclipse為一套普遍使用的開發環境與工具整合平台，提供了文字編輯器程式框架使建造此種編輯器成為可能，然而大多數的開發者仍然無法透過此複雜的框架開發少數人使用的編輯器。基於此種因素，我們實做EGOE這一套編輯器生成系統，以標的語言的定義為基礎，使用MDA模型驅動的方式在Eclipse平台上自動生成編輯器，使之為標的語言提供結構化編輯與純文字編輯等不同的編輯方式，並且於文字編輯時提供醒目提示、內容輔助與文字喜好設定等編輯相關的輔助功能。 / An editor with special editing aids for a language can increase efficiency and reduce errors while editing sources of the target language. Although of great use, this kind of editors were difficult to create as witnessed by the lack of a language-specific editor (LSE) for most domain specific languages. As the release of Eclipse, however, the situation is changing. Eclipse is an integrated development environment (IDE) firstly published in late 2001 but quickly emerged as a most used IDE. It is indeed also a tool integration platform providing, besides others, a text editor framework, thus making the development of LSEs on Eclipse possible. However, due to the complication of the platform and, especially, the editor framework, it is not easy at all to develop an LSE directly on the framework without any help. We thus in this thesis propose alternatively a generating system of editing environments on the Eclipse platform, which, when given an editing-related specification of the target language, can apply the model-driven approach as suggested by OMG's MDA to generate an editing environment for the target language on Eclipse. The generated editor provides both structured and text editing capabilities. For text editing, we add among its functionalities those such as syntax highlight, content assist and preferences setting for the target language.

The recent version of UML 2.0 (in year 2006) specifies activities and actions, which allow describing low level behavior of software system being modeled, in implementation independent fashion. This work analyzes suitability of UML 2.0 activities and actions for generating full program code (or as many as possible). It also proposes a method for generating program code from UML 2.0 activities and actions, which consists of a way to express UML activities with concurrently executing actions in a sequential execution scenario and a way to determine the exact code template (among the few possible) for UML activity elements based on identifying the particular context of element in question.

Šiame darbe analizuojama MDE programų inžinerijos metodai, o taip pat OMG MDA ir Microsoft DSL Tools. MS DSL Tools - tai galingas priedas prie MS Visual Studio 2005, skirtas taikymo srities kalbų metamodelių kūrimui ir grafinių aplinkų darbui su jomis generavimui. Taip pat galima sukurti tekstinų šabloną, kuris gali transformuoti duotą modelį į programinį kodą. Darbe aprašomas sukurtas modeliavimo kalbos metamodelis. taip pat aprašoma tekstinių šablonų kalba, skirta modelių trasformacijom kurti. / This paper analyses MDE approach to software engineering as well as OMG’s MDA and Microsoft DSL Tools. MS DSL Tools are a powerful addition to MS Visual Studio 2005 for creating your own Domain Specific Language metamodels and generating IDEs for working with it. Then you can make a text template to transform your model directly into code. The work describes developed aggregate modeling language metamodel. It also explains text template language for model transformations. The research also includes analysis of the possibility to use model transformations to generate code for data acquisition form database.

No description available.

The complexity of modern systems is continuously growing, thus demanding novel powerful development approaches.In this direction, model-driven and component-based software engineering have reached the status of promising paradigms for the development of complex systems. Moreover, in the embedded domain, their combination is believed to be helpful in handling the ever-increasing complexity of such systems.However, in order for them and their combination to definitively break through at industrial level, code generated from models through model transformations should preserve system properties modelled at design level. This research work focuses on aiding the preservation of system properties throughout the entire development process across different abstraction levels. Towards this goal, we provide the possibility of analysing and preserving system properties through a development chain constituted of three steps: (i) generation of code from system models, (ii) execution and analysis of generated code, and (iii) back-propagation of analysis results to system models.With the introduction of steps (ii) and (iii), properties that are hard to predict at modelling level are compared with runtime values and this consequently allows the developer to work exclusively at modelling level thus focusing on optimising system models with the help of those values. / Denna doktorsavhandling presenterar nya och förbättrade tekniker för modelldriven och komponentbaserad utveckling av programvara. Syftet är att bevara systemegenskaper, som specificerats i modeller, genom de olika stadierna av utvecklingen och när modeller översätts mellan olika abstraktionsnivåer och till kod. Vi introducerar möjligheter att studera och bevara systemets egenskaper genom att skapa en kedja i tre steg som: (i) genererar kod från systemmodellen, (ii) exekverar och analyserar den genererade koden och (iii) slutligen återkopplar analysvärden till systemmodellen. Introduktionen av steg (ii) och (iii) gör det möjligt att genomföra en detaljerad analys av egenskaper som är svåra, eller till och med omöjliga, att studera med hjälp av endast systemmodeller. Fördelen med det här tillvägagångssättet är att det förenklar för utvecklaren som slipper arbeta direkt med kod för att ändra systemegenskaper. Istället kan utvecklaren arbeta helt och hållet med modeller och fokusera på optimering av systemmodeller med hjälp av analysvärden från testkörningar av systemet. Vi är övertygade om att denna typ av teknik är nödvändig att utveckla för att stödja modelldriven utveckling av programvara eftersom dagens tekniker inte möjliggör för systemutvecklare att specificera, analysera och optimera systemegenskaper på modellnivå. / La continua crescita in complessitá dei sistemi software moderni porta alla necessitá di definire nuovi e piú efficaci approcci di sviluppo. In questa direzione, metodi basati su modelli (model-driven engineering) e componenti (component-based software engineering) sono stati riconosciuti come promettenti nuove alternative per lo sviluppo di sistemi complessi. Inoltre l'interazione tra loro é ritenuta particolarmente vantaggiosa nella gestione nello sviluppo di sistemi integrati. Affinché questi approcci, cosí come la loro interazione, possano definitivamente prendere piede in campo industriale, il codice generato dai modelli tramite apposite transformazioni deve essere in grado di preservare le proprietá di sistema, sia funzionali che extra-funzionali, definite nei modelli. Il lavoro di ricerca presentato in questa tesi di dottorato si focalizza sul preservamento delle proprietá di sistema nell'intero processo di sviluppo e attraverso i diversi livelli di astrazione. Il risultato principale é rappresentato da un approccio automatico di round-trip engineering in grado di sostenere il preservamento delle proprietá di sistema attraverso: 1) generazione automatica di codice, 2) monitoraggio e analisi dell'esecuzione del codice generate su piattaforme specifiche, e 3) offrendo la possibilitá di propagare verticalmente i risultati da runtime al livello di modellazione. In questo modo, quelle proprietá che possono essere stimate staticamente solo in maniera approssimativa, vengono valutate in rapporto ai valori ottenuti a runtime. Ció permette di ottimizzare il sistema a livello di design attraverso i modelli, piuttosto che manualmente a livello di codice, per assicurare il preservamento degli proprietá di sistema d'interesse.

This thesis presents research to build and evaluate embedding of a textual form of state machines into high-level programming languages. The work entailed adding state machine syntax and code generation to the Umple model-oriented programming technology. The added concepts include states, transitions, actions, and composite states as found in the Unified Modeling Language (UML). This approach allows software developers to take advantage of the modeling abstractions in their textual environments, without sacrificing the value added of visual modeling. Our efforts in developing state machines in Umple followed a test-driven approach to ensure high quality and usability of the technology. We have also developed a syntax-directed editor for Umple, similar to those available to other high-level programming languages. We conducted a grounded theory study of Umple users and used the findings iteratively to guide our experimental development. Finally, we conducted a controlled experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach. By enhancing the code to be almost as expressive as the model, we further support model-code duality; the notion that both model and code are two faces for the same coin. Systems can be and should be equally-well specified textually and diagrammatically. Such duality will benefit both modelers and coders alike. Our work suggests that code enhanced with state machine modeling abstractions is semantically equivalent to visual state machine models. The flow of the thesis is as follows; the research hypothesis and questions are presented in “Chapter 1: Introduction”. The background is explored in “Chapter 2: Background”. “Chapter 3: Syntax and semantics of simple state machines” and “Chapter 4: Syntax and semantics of composite state machines” investigate simple and composite state machines in Umple, respectively. “Chapter 5: Implementation of composite state machines” presents the approach we adopt for the implementation of composite state machines that avoids explosion of the amount of generated code. From this point on, the thesis presents empirical work. A grounded theory study is presented in “Chapter 6: A Grounded theory study of Umple”, followed by a controlled experiment in “Chapter 7: Experimentation”. These two chapters constitute our validation and evaluation of Umple research. Related and future work is presented in “Chapter 8: Related work”.

As video game designers focus on immersive interactive stories, the number of game object interactions grows exponentially. Most games use manually-programmed scripts to control object interactions, although automated techniques for generating scripts from high-level specifications are being introduced. For example, ScriptEase provides designers with generative patterns that inject commonly-occurring interactions into games. ScriptEase patterns generate scripts for the game Neverwinter Nights. A kind of generative pattern, the quest pattern, generates scripting code controlling the plot in story-based games. I present my additions to the quest pattern architecture (meta quest points and abandonable subquests), a catalogue of quest patterns, and the results of two studies measuring their effectiveness. These studies show that quest patterns are easy-to-use, substantially reduce plot scripting errors, and their catalogue is highly-reusable between games. These studies demonstrate ScriptEase generative quest patterns are a desirable alternative to manual plot scripting in commercial, story-based games.