Andrei Kirshin

Managing forked product variants

We consider the problem of supporting effective code reuse as part of Software Product Line Engineering. Our approach is based on code forking -- a practice commonly used in industry where new products are created by cloning the existing ones. We propose to maintain meta-information allowing organization to reason about the developed product line in terms of features rather than incremental code changes made in different forks and to detect inconsistencies in implementations of these features. In addition, we propose to detect and maintain semantic, implementation-level require relationships between features, supporting the developers when they copy features from different branches or delete features in their own branch, thus facilitating reuse of features between products. Our approach aims at mitigating the disadvantages of the forking mechanism while leveraging its advantages. We illustrate the approach on an example, and discuss its possible implementation and integration with Software Configuration Management systems.

Verification of embedded system's specification using collaborative simulation of SysML and simulink models

The authors propose an extension of SysML which enables description of continuous-time behavior. The authors also develop its execution tool integrated on Eclipse-based platform by exploiting co-simulation of SysML and MATLAB / Simulink. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the tool and the extension to SysML in verifying specifications of an embedded system, we create a sample model and analyze its execution results by checking constraints under a test case.

Debugging and testing behavioral UML models

As software complexity increases, the process of software development is shifting from being code-centric to model-centric. For this purpose, UML augments the object-oriented paradigm with powerful and flexible behavioral modeling capabilities. It allows the developer to describe the systems behavior in a higher level of abstraction by using state machines, activities, and interactions. To facilitate such model-driven development, we present a plug-in for IBM Rationals modeling tools, which enables the execution, debugging and testing of UML models. The presentation will show how to use our tools to discover defects early in the development cycle, thus preventing costly rework at later stages. We will highlight the innovative features of our tools, such as model-level debug control, interactive dynamic debugging, and the extensibility that allows developing support for UML profiles.

A UML simulator based on a generic model execution engine

We implemented a generic model execution engine. The engine provides mechanisms for the realization and the execution of behavioral semantics, and the control and observation of model behavior. We used this generic execution engine to implement a UML Model Simulator. It is designed as an extension to Rational Software Architect (RSA), adding execution and debugging capabilities.

NitroGen: rapid development of mobile applications

Constructing a mobile application is expensive and time consuming. In this paper, we present NitroGen which is a platform independent tool that provides a consumable integrated set of capabilities to construct mobile solutions aiming at reducing development and maintenance costs. NitroGen is a visual, mostly codeless, cloud-based platform to construct mobile applications. It can easily connect to back-end services thus enable fast and facile development in enterprises. Evaluating NitroGen, we found among others, that participants learned it fast and found it simple and suitable for mobile applications development.

Developing enterprise mobile applications the easy way

Constructing a mobile application in the enterprise is expensive and time consuming. On average, deploying a mobile application is estimated at one week of effort per screen. We present an evaluation of NitroGen, a platform-independent tool for constructing mobile solutions. The tool provides a consumable integrated set of capabilities aimed at reducing development and maintenance costs. NitroGen is a mostly codeless, cloud-based, platform for visually constructing mobile applications. We demonstrate how students with some skills in web development and no skills in mobile development have successfully learned and used NitroGen to implement a small-scale three-screen application, which uses existing back-end services—all in less than 90 minutes.