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Version control is a widely used practice among software developers. It reduces the risk of changing their software and allows them to manage different configurations and to collaborate with others more efficiently. This is amplified by code sharing platforms such as GitHub or Bitbucket. Most version control systems track files (e.g., Git, Mercurial, and Subversion do), but some programming environments do not operate on files, but on objects instead (many Smalltalk implementations do). Users of such environments want to use version control for their objects anyway. Specialized version control systems, such as the ones available for Smalltalk systems (e.g., ENVY/Developer and Monticello), focus on a small subset of objects that can be versioned. Most of these systems concentrate on the tracking of methods, classes, and configurations of these. Other user-defined and user-built objects are either not eligible for version control at all, tracking them involves complicated workarounds, or a fixed, domain-unspecific serialization format is used that does not equally suit all kinds of objects. Moreover, these version control systems that are specific to a programming environment require their own code sharing platforms; popular, well-established platforms for file-based version control systems cannot be used or adapter solutions need to be implemented and maintained.
To improve the situation for version control of arbitrary objects, a framework for tracking, converting, and storing of objects is presented in this report. It allows editions of objects to be stored in an exchangeable, existing backend version control system. The platforms of the backend version control system can thus be reused. Users and objects have control over how objects are captured for the purpose of version control. Domain-specific requirements can be implemented. The storage format (i.e. the file format, when file-based backend version control systems are used) can also vary from one object to another. Different editions of objects can be compared and sets of changes can be applied to graphs of objects. A generic way for capturing and restoring that supports most kinds of objects is described. It models each object as a collection of slots. Thus, users can begin to track their objects without first having to implement version control supplements for their own kinds of objects. The proposed architecture is evaluated using a prototype implementation that can be used to track objects in Squeak/Smalltalk with Git. The prototype improves the suboptimal standing of user objects with respect to version control described above and also simplifies some version control tasks for classes and methods as well. It also raises new problems, which are discussed in this report as well.
In 1997, Henry Lieberman stated that debugging is the dirty little secret of computer science. Since then, several promising debugging technologies have been developed such as back-in-time debuggers and automatic fault localization methods. However, the last study about the state-of-the-art in debugging is still more than 15 years old and so it is not clear whether these new approaches have been applied in practice or not. For that reason, we investigate the current state of debugging in a comprehensive study. First, we review the available literature and learn about current approaches and study results. Second, we observe several professional developers while debugging and interview them about their experiences. Third, we create a questionnaire that serves as the basis for a larger online debugging survey. Based on these results, we present new insights into debugging practice that help to suggest new directions for future research.
Making the domain tangible
(2017)
Programmers collaborate continuously with domain experts to explore the problem space and to shape a solution that fits the users’ needs. In doing so, all parties develop a shared vocabulary, which is above all a list of named concepts and their relationships to each other. Nowadays, many programmers favor object-oriented programming because it allows them to directly represent real-world concepts and interactions from the vocabulary as code. However, when existing domain data is not yet represented as objects, it becomes a challenge to initially bring existing domain data into object-oriented systems and to keep the source code readable. While source code might be comprehensible to programmers, domain experts can struggle, given their non-programming background. We present a new approach to provide a mapping of existing data sources into the object-oriented programming environment. We support keeping the code of the domain model compact and readable while adding implicit means to access external information as internal domain objects. This should encourage programmers to explore different ways to build the software system quickly. Eventually, our approach fosters communication with the domain experts, especially at the beginning of a project. When the details in the problem space are not yet clear, the source code provides a valuable, tangible communication artifact.
Squimera
(2017)
Software development tools that work and behave consistently across different programming languages are helpful for developers, because they do not have to familiarize themselves with new tooling whenever they decide to use a new language. Also, being able to combine multiple programming languages in a program increases reusability, as developers do not have to recreate software frameworks and libraries in the language they develop in and can reuse existing software instead.
However, developers often have a broad choice with regard to tools, some of which are designed for only one specific programming language. Various Integrated Development Environments have support for multiple languages, but are usually unable to provide a consistent programming experience due to different features of language runtimes. Furthermore, common mechanisms that allow reuse of software written in other languages usually use the operating system or a network connection as the abstract layer. Tools, however, often cannot support such indirections well and are therefore less useful in debugging scenarios for example.
In this report, we present a novel approach that aims to improve the programming experience with regard to working with multiple high-level programming languages. As part of this approach, we reuse the tools of a Smalltalk programming environment for other languages and build a multi-language virtual execution environment which is able to provide the same runtime capabilities for all languages.
The prototype system Squimera is an implementation of our approach and demonstrates that it is possible to reuse development tools, so that they behave in the same way across all supported programming languages. In addition, it provides convenient means to reuse and even mix software libraries and frameworks written in different languages without breaking the debugging experience.
Dynamic service adaptation
(2006)
Change can be observed in our environment and in the technology we build. While changes in the environment happen continuously and implicitly, our technology has to be kept in sync with the changing world around it. Although we can prepare for some of the changes for most of them we cannot. This is especially true for next-generation mobile communication systems that are expected to support the creation of a ubiquitous society where virtually everything is connected and made available within an organic information network. Resources will frequently join or leave the network, new types of media or new combinations of existing types will be used to interact and cooperate, and services will be tailored to preferences and needs of individual customers to better meet their needs. This paper outlines our research in the area of dynamic service adaptation to provide concepts and technologies allowing for such environments. Copyright (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.