Erhard Ploedereder

Information technology — Programming Languages — Ada

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Optimization of Variability in Software Product Lines

The widespread use of the product line approach allows companies to realize significant improvements in time-to- market, cost, productivity, and quality. However, a fundamental problem in software product line engineering is that a product line of industrial size can easily incorporate several thousand variable features. The complexity caused by this amount of variability makes variability management and product derivation tasks extremely difficult. To address this problem, we present a new method to optimize the variability provided in a software product line. Our method constructs a visualization that provides a classification of the usage of variable features in real products derived from the product line. We show how this classification can be used to derive restructuring strategies for simplifying the variability. The effectiveness of our work is demonstrated by presenting a case study of optimizing the variability in a large industrial software product line.

The Dagstuhl Middle Metamodel: A Schema For Reverse Engineering☆

The Dagstuhl Middle Metamodel (DMM) is an extensible schema for static models of software. It is a middle-level metamodel since it captures program level entities and their relationships, rather than a full abstract syntax graph (lower level), or architectural abstractions (higher level). DMM can be used to represent models extracted from software written in most common object-oriented and procedural languages. This paper presents the main features of DMM.

Restructuring Variability in Software Product Lines using Concept Analysis of Product Configurations

The management of variability plays an important role in successful software product line engineering. As the set of products that is derived from the product line and their requirements are constantly changing, the variability in the product line needs to evolve as well. A typical problem in in such an evolution scenario is that the number of variable features and variants will explode, and thus become unmanageable. One of the reasons for this explosion is that obsolete variable features are not removed. In order to address this problem, we present a new method for restructuring and simplifying the provided variability in a software product line. Our method is based on concept analysis. It analyzes the realized variability in a software product line, and constructs a lattice that provides a classification of the usage of variable features in real products derived from the product line. We show how this classification can be used to derive restructuring strategies for variability that solve the problem of variability explosion. The effectiveness of our method is demonstrated by presenting a case study of restructuring the variability in a large industrial software product line

Ada 2005 reference manual: language and standard libraries

General.- Lexical elements.- Declarations and types.- Names and expressions.- Statements.- Subprograms.- Packages.- Visibility rules.- Tasks and synchronization.- Program structure and compilation issues.- Exceptions.- Generic units.- Representation issues.

Consolidated ada reference manual: language and standard libraries

Information technology - Programming Languages - Ada.- Section 2: Lexical Elements.- Section 3: Declarations and Types.- Section 4: Names and Expressions.- Section 5: Statements.- Section 6: Subprograms.- Section 7: Packages.- Section 8: Visibility Rules.- Section 9: Tasks and Synchronization.- Section 10: Program Structure and Compilation Issues.- Section 11: Exceptions.- Section 12: Generic Units.- Section 13: Representation Issues.- Annex A (normative).- Annex B (normative).- Annex C (normative).- Annex D (normative).- Annex E (normative).- Annex F (normative).- Annex G (normative).- Annex H (normative).- Annex J (normative).- Annex K (informative).- Annex L (informative).- Annex M (informative).- Annex N (informative).- Annex P (informative).

How to program in Ada 9X, using Ada 83

Existing software will have to be transitioned from Ada 83 to Ada 9X. This paper explains presently known incompatibilities between the existing Ada standard and its proposed revision. It provides guidelines to users, which will make their Ada 83 code upward compatible with Ada 9X.

Detecting high-level synchronization errors in parallel programs

Synchronization errors in parallel programs are not limited to race conditions involving accesses to single variables. Absence of these errors does not guarantee that programs are error free. However, many of the remaining errors cannot be recognized without a higher level of abstraction for the communication patterns. This paper discusses two types of high-level error scenarios, namely non-atomic protection and lost-updates, and presents a static framework to detect situations where such synchronization anomalies can manifest themselves.

Building consensus for Ada 9X

Language design is a most difficult task. While the original design of a language has the distinct advantage of filling a blank page, the revision of a language needs to abide by a number of constraints that limit the degree of design freedom. These constraints are both of a technical and a nontechnical nature. In a language revision, each desired change has both a benefit and a cost. Deciding which changes to incorporate into the language becomes a cost/benefit analysis within the framework of the existing constraints. In this article, we will explore some of these constraints and their impact on the Ada 9X revision process.

Ada and the software vulnerabilities project

Given the large focus on software vulnerabilities in the current market place, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 23 has developed a Technical Report (TR) on Vulnerabilities [1]. This TR contains vulnerabilities that may be applicable to a programming language or application. This article provides a synopsis of these vulnerabilities with respect to the Ada programming language [2].