Thesis (M.Tech.: Computer Studies)-Dept. of Computer Science, Durban Institute of Technology, 2002. / Computer programming has been a science for approximately 50 years. It this time there havebeen two major paradigm shifts that have taken place. The first was from “spaghetti code” to structured programs. The second paradigm shift is from procedural programs to object oriented programs. The change in paradigm involves a change in the way in which a problem is approached, can be solved, as well as a difference in the language that is used. The languages that were chosen to be studied, are COBOL and Java. These programming languages were identified as key languages, and the languages that software development are the most reliant on. COBOL, the procedural language for existing business systems, and Java the object oriented language, the most likely to be used for future development. To complete this study, both languages were studied in detail. The similarities and differences between the programming languages are discussed. Some key issues that a COBOL programmer has to keep in mind when moving to Java were identified.

Computer programming is a core area in computer science education that involves practical as well as conceptual learning goals. The literature in programming education reports however that novice students have great problems in their learning. These problems apply to concepts as well as to practise. The empirically based research presented in this thesis contributes to the body of knowledge on students' learning by investigating the relationship between conceptual and practical learning in novice student learning of programming. Previous research in programming education has focused either on students' practical or conceptual learning. The present research indicates however that students' problems with learning to program partly depend on a complex relationship and mutual dependence between the two. The most significant finding is that practise, in terms of activities at different levels of proficiency, and qualitatively different conceptual understandings, have dimensions of variation in common. An analytical model is suggested where the dimensions of variation relate both to concepts and activities. The implications of the model are several. With the dimensions of variation at the center of learning this implies that when students discern a dimension of variation, related conceptual understandings and the meaning embedded in related practises can be discerned. Activities as well as concepts can relate to more than one dimension. Activities at a higher level of proficiency, as well as qualitatively richer understandings of concepts, relate to more dimensions of variation. Concrete examples are given on how variation theory and patterns of variation can be applied in teaching programming. The results can be used by educators to help students discern dimensions of variation, and thus facilitate practical as well as conceptual learning.

Thesis (M. App. Sc.)--Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-82). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2007. / Additional advisors: Jeff Gray, Marjan Mernik, Alan Sprague, Murat Tanik. Description based on contents viewed June 25, 2007; title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 132-138).

The way in which application systems and software are built has changed dramatically over the past few years. This is mainly due to advances in hardware technology, programming languages, as well as the requirement to build better software application systems in less time. The importance of mondial (worldwide) communication between systems is also growing exponentially. People are using network-based applications daily, communicating not only locally, but also globally. The Internet, the global network, therefore plays a significant role in the development of new software. Distributed object computing is one of the computing paradigms that promise to solve the need to develop clienVserver application systems, communicating over heterogeneous environments. This study, of limited scope, concentrates on one crucial element without which distributed object computing cannot be implemented. This element is the communication software, also called middleware, which allows objects situated on different hardware platforms to communicate over a network. Two of the most important middleware standards for distributed object computing today are the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) from the Object Management Group, and the Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) from Microsoft Corporation. Each of these standards is implemented in commercially available products, allowing distributed objects to communicate over heterogeneous networks. In studying each of the middleware standards, a formal way of comparing CORBA and DCOM is presented, namely meta-modelling. For each of these two distributed object infrastructures (middleware), meta-models are constructed. Based on this uniform and unbiased approach, a comparison of the two distributed object infrastructures is then performed. The results are given as a set of tables in which the differences and similarities of each distributed object infrastructure are exhibited. By adopting this approach, errors caused by misunderstanding or misinterpretation are minimised. Consequently, an accurate and unbiased comparison between CORBA and DCOM is made possible, which constitutes the main aim of this dissertation. / Computing / M. Sc. (Computer Science)

Profiling techniques to detect performance bugs in applications are usually customized to detect a specific bug pattern and involve significant engineering effort. In spite of this effort, many techniques either suffer from high runtime overheads or are imprecise. This necessitates the design of a common and efficient instrumentation substrate that profiles the flow of objects during an execution. Designing such a substrate which enables profile generation precisely with low overhead is non-trivial due to the number of objects created, accessed and paths traversed by them in an execution. In this thesis, we design and implement an efficient instrumentation substrate that efficiently generates object flow profiles for Java programs, without requiring any modifications to the underlying virtual machine. We achieve this by applying Ball-Larus numbering on a specialized hy-brid ow graph (hfg). The hfg path profiles that are collected during runtime are post-processed o ine to derive the object flow profiles. We extend the design to handle inter-procedural objec flows by constructing flow summaries for each method and incorporating them appropriately. We have implemented the substrate and validated its efficacy by applying it on programs from popular benchmark suites including dacapo and java-grande. The results demonstrate the scalability of our approach, which handles 0.2M to 0.55B object accesses with an average runtime overhead of 8x. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of the generated profiles by implementing three client analyses that consume the profiles to detect performance bugs. The analyses are able to detect 38 performance bugs which when refactored result in signi cant performance gains (up to 30%) in running times.

Orientador: Laurence Duarte Colvara / Banca: Sergio Azevedo de Oliveira / Banca: José Aquiles Baesso Grimoni / Resumo: Em vista da comum associação do professor com um modelo ou padrão a ser seguido, este trabalho evidencia a importância da figura docente em sala de aula e propõe a partir do estudo da aprendizagem e dos alunos sob diferentes perspectivas, a utilização de instrumentos complementares aos métodos tradicionalmente utilizados no ensino de engenharia. O conceito da aprendizagem é demonstrado conforme as propostas das escolas nova e tradicional. Os alunos, por sua vez, são definidos de acordo com os diversos estilos de aprendizagem e destaca-se que a maioria dos estudantes de engenharia possui natureza sensitiva. A importância de uma reflexão pedagógica é fortalecida com a verificação dos modelos mentais construídos pelos alunos, baseados na elaboração de imagens, principalmente quando submetidos a questões que envolvam fenômenos abstratos à percepção humana. A partir de então, é fornecida ao professor a possibilidade de buscar novas ferramentas e metodologias de ensino que melhorem o aprendizado, tais como modelos análogos e representações visuais, aplicando-as sempre que necessário, para que não se perca a comunicação professor-aluno e a escola mantenha atualizados seus paradigmas conforme a evolução tecnológica. Baseado nesta pesquisa, este trabalho resulta no desenvolvimento de um software educacional utilizando... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: As it is common the association of the professor with a model or pattern to be followed, this work evidences the importance of the master in the classroom and starting from the study of the learning processes and of the students behaviour under different perspectives proposes the use of complemental instruments to the traditional methods applied in the engineering teaching. The learning concept is demonstrated according to the proposals from new and traditional schools. The students are defined according to the several learning styles and stand out that most of the engineering students are sensors. The importance of a pedagogic reflection is reinforced with the verification of the mental models built by the students, based on the images creation, mainly when they face questions that involve phenomena that seems abstract to the usual human perception. Starting from then it is provided to the teachers the possibility of seeking new tools and teaching methodologies that improve the learning, such as analogue models and visual representations, applying them when necessary, so that teachers and students have no lack of communication between themselves and the school keeps up with its paradigms according to the technological evolution. Based on this research, this work results in the development of an educational software... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:06:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 6590.pdf: 1739821 bytes, checksum: 376967fb01c5f5d38d60ce523ffa6021 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-01-08 / Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos / Context: Software testing play an important role to reveal faults and increase the quality of developed products. Structural-based testing has shown to be important in the evaluation of both the quality of the software and the quality of the test set itself. Objective: This work reports on the results of an experimental study that aimed to evaluate the quality of test sets which were originally built for a given programming paradigm, when such test sets are adapted and applied to a different paradigm. Besides this, this we also measure the effort to migrate test sets from one paradigm to another. In this work, we considered the object-oriented (OO) and aspect-oriented (AO) paradigms. Method: We evaluated the quality of test sets by analysing the code coverage yielded by test sets within both paradigms; to evaluate the effort required to adapt test sets across paradigms, we performed comparisons of code-related metrics applied to test code. In total, we analysed 12 small-sized applications and one medium-sized application. Results: The achieved coverage for distinct groups of applications did not show expressive differences across the paradigms, particularly for small-sized applications. Only for the medium-sized system tests yielded higher code coverage in the OO implementation. In respect with the test set adaptation effort, migrating OO tests to the AO paradigm required more code additions, whilst migrating AO tests to the OO implementations required more code changes and removals. Conclusion: With the achieved results, we cannot state that there is a difference in the quality of the test sets, in terms of structural coverage, when both paradigms are taken into account. Only for a single application the coverage difference was evident. In regard to the process of migrating tests from one paradigms to another, OO tests have shown to be more concise (in terms of lines of code) and more reusable than OA tests. / Contexto: O teste de software é uma atividade importante para revelar defeitos e aumentar a qualidade nos produtos desenvolvidos. Testes estruturais tem se mostrados bastante importantes para a avaliação da qualidade do software ou mesmo do conjunto de testes utilizado para testá-lo. Objetivo: Este trabalho apresenta um estudo experimental para avaliar a qualidade de conjuntos de testes criados para um paradigma em específico, quando adaptado e aplicado em outro paradigma, avaliando também o esforço para adaptar conjuntos de testes quando ocorre a migração de um paradigma para outro. Os paradigmas considerados são o paradigma orientado a objetos (OO) e o paradigma orientado a aspectos (OA). Metodo: Para a avaliação da qualidade dos conjuntos de testes adaptados foi analisada a cobertura de código atingida em ambos os paradigmas; para a avaliação do esforço na adaptação dos conjuntos de testes, métricas de código foram comparadas em relação a implementações dos testes em cada paradigma considerado. No total, 12 aplicações de pequeno porte e uma aplicação de médio porte foram avaliadas. Resultados: A cobertura de código atingida para diferentes grupos de aplicações não resultou em diferenças expressivas entre os paradigmas, em particular para as aplicações de pequeno porte. Somente no sistema de médio porte o codigo da implementação OO foi mais coberto do que na implementação OA. Em relação ao esforço na adaptação dos conjuntos de testes, os testes OO migrados para as implementações OA necessitaram de mais incrementos de código, enquanto os conjuntos de testes OA migrados para o paradigma OO necessitaram de mais decrementos e modificações. Conclusão: Com os resultados alcançados não e possível afirmar que um conjunto de testes adaptado de um determinado paradigma possui maior qualidade em relação a outro paradigma, com exceção de uma aplicação, em que o conjunto de testes OO se apresentou com qualidade superior ao conjunto de testes OA. Em relação a migração de conjuntos de testes entre paradigmas, os testes OO apresentaram-se mais enxutos (em termos de linhas de código) e mais reutilizaveis do que os testes OA.

Em engenharia, modelos podem ser entendidos como representações das características principais de um objeto, criadas com o propósito ele permitir a visualização e compreensão da estrutura e do comportamento do objeto, antes de sua construção. A estrutura de um objeto de engenharia pode ser definida por um modelo geométrico que descreve, exata ou aproximadamente, suas formas e dimensões materiais. O comportamento pode ser descrito por um conjunto de equações diferenciais de um modelo matemático que nos permite prever, sob certas condições, os efeitos de ações externas sobre o objeto. A solução do modelo matemático pode ser obtida pela análise computacional numérica de um modelo mecânico do objeto, através do método dos elementos finitos e/ou método dos elementos de contorno. Nesse trabalho, apresentamos um Sistema de Modelagem Estrutural Orientado a Objetos denominado OSW - Object Structural Workbench, destinado ao desenvolvimento de programas de análise e visualização de modelos em engenharia de estruturas. Na primeira parte do texto, introduzimos os fundamentos utilizados no desenvolvimento do sistema. Na segunda parte, descrevemos como empregar as bibliotecas de classes de OSW na construção de um programa de modelagem e apresentamos a alguns resultados obtidos com o sistema. / In engineering, models may be thought as representations for the main characteristics of an object. Such representations enable us to visualize and understand the object structure and behaviour before constructing the object itself. The engineering ohject structure can be defined by a qeometric model which faith ful or approximately describes the object shape and size. The object behaviour can be ruled by a differential equations set from a mathematical model, which enables us to predict the effects of external forces acting on the object. The solution for the mathematical model can be obtained by applying the method of finite elements or method of boundary elements to an object mechanical model. In the text, we present an Object Oriented Structural Modeling System called OSW - Object Structural Workbench. The system has been designed to aid the development of computer programs for analysis and visualization of structural models. The text has been designed to aid the development of computer programs for analysis and visualization of structural models. The text has been divided into two parts. At the first one, we introduce the mathematical and computational basis employed in OSW construction. At the second one, we describe how to use the OSW class libraries to develop our own structural modeling applications, and also we present some results from OSW.

Orientador: Edevar Luvizotto Junior / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-07T09:53:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ArandaSaldana_EdwinAntonio_M.pdf: 1687985 bytes, checksum: 0c5e968a32c41fdf3cc83eca866e6ea6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: O presente trabalho apresenta as bases para a elaboração de um modelo hidráulico computacional baseado na filosofia de programação orientada por objetos (POO) para o tratamento de problemas de escoamento de fluidos em condutos forçados em regime permanente e transitório. Na modelação hidráulica foi empregado um modelo dinâmico inercial elástico com solução através do Método das Características (MOC). Os estudos de casos apresentados mostram o potencial da ferramenta proposta para a análise de escoamentos de instalações hidráulicas em condutos forçados / Abstract: The present work shows the basis for the elaboration of a computational hydraulic model based on the object oriented programming (POO) philosophy for the management of flow problems such as flow rate in pipe systems in steady and unsteady states. The hydraulic modeling is based on the inertial dynamic model with solved through the Method of Characteristics (MOC). The different cases of studies presented in this dissertation show the potential of this tool proposal for the analysis of pipe flow installations in hydraulic systems / Mestrado / Recursos Hidricos / Mestre em Engenharia Civil