Holger M. Kienle

Software Engineering for Self-Adaptive Systems: A Research Roadmap

The goal of this roadmap paper is to summarize the state-of-the-art and to identify critical challenges for the systematic software engineering of self-adaptive systems. The paper is partitioned into four parts, one for each of the identified essential views of self-adaptation: modelling dimensions, requirements, engineering, and assurances. For each view, we present the state-of-the-art and the challenges that our community must address. This roadmap paper is a result of the Dagstuhl Seminar 08031 on Software Engineering for Self-Adaptive Systems, which took place in January 2008.

Trace recording for embedded systems: lessons learned from five industrial projects

This paper presents experiences from five industry collaboration projects performed between 2004-2009 where solutions for embedded systems trace recording have been developed and evaluated; in four cases for specific industrial systems and in the last case as a generic solution for a commercial real-time operating system, in collaboration with the RTOS company. The experiences includes technical solutions regarding efficient instrumentation and logging, technology transfer issues and evaluation results regarding CPU and RAM overhead. A brief overview of the Tracealyzer tool is also presented, a result of the first project (2004) which still is used by ABB Robotics and now in commercialization.

It's About Time to Take JavaScript (More) Seriously

JavaScript is a scripting language, of course. The drawbacks and benefits of scripting languages compared to full-fledged programming languages have been explored before. In a previous installment of this column, Diomidis Spinellis points out that with scripting languages, users can benefit from flexible syntax, loose type systems, powerful reflection mechanisms, and shorter build cycles. Scripting languages have proven their usefulness in various application areas. Unix relies heavily on shell scripting to accomplish many complex tasks. Visual Basic, in combination with ActiveX, provides a low-entry barrier into the world of component-based programming. Tcl/Tk is still popular to rapidly develop GUI-based applications. And then theres JavaScript, which has gained considerable importance in realizing clientside functionality on Web apps. In a survey on the most popular programming languages, JavaScript made it to the Top 10.

Software Reverse Engineering in the Domain of Complex Embedded Systems

This chapter provides a review of reverse engineering of software for complex embedded systems. Our review is motivated by the observation that the reach and importance of embedded systems are grow ...

Ten years of access for all from WSE 2001 to WSE 2011

At WSE 2001 the theme was Access for All. A decade later, this theme is revisited for WSE 2011. We take this opportunity to discuss the past, present, and future of Web accessibility. Five representative categories of Web accessibility are considered: accommodating disabilities, Web literacy, user interfaces, lingual barriers, and open data.

Liability for software in safety-critical mechatronic systems: an industrial questionnaire

There is very little research on how industry is dealing with the risk of legal liability when constructing safety-critical mechatronic systems that are also software intensive. In this paper we propose a case study approach with the goal to understand how liability concerns in this setting impact software development in industry. The approach takes into account that software development is embedded into a complex socio-technical context involving stakeholders from technical, managerial and legal backgrounds. We present first results of our case study from a questionnaire involving six companies that develop software-intensive, safety-critical systems in the vehicular and avionics domains. The results of the questionnaire shed light on current industrial practices and concerns. The results indicate that liability seems indeed a concern and that a more in-depth analysis of this topic would be desirable to better understand the strategies that are used by industry to address liability risks.

Guest editors' introduction to the 4th issue of Experimental Software and Toolkits (EST-4)

Experimental software and toolkits play a crucial role in computer science. Elseviers Science of Computer Programming special issues on Experimental Software and Toolkits (EST) provide a means for academic tool builders to get more visibility and credit for their work, by publishing a paper along with the corresponding system in a peer-reviewed journal. Typically, tools are presented from both a user and a developer perspective, addressing tool-building issues such as architecture and design, requirements, methodologies and process aspects. This is already the fourth edition of EST with no less than 17 published systems covering application areas ranging from software analysis and visualization to teaching and software development support.

Legal aspects of web systems

The web offers a ubiquitous platform for commercial and information-sharing activities, which are realized by a broad spectrum of web systems. Not surprisingly, triggered by lawsuits, many legal aspects impacting web systems have emerged over time and they should be a concern for web systems operators, users and researchers. This paper identifies prominent legal issues relating to web systems access, content, design and code: copyright, patents, contracts, trespass, and others. Based on the identified issues we offer a number of observations on how the legal landscape has been shifting, on the role of contracts, and on the laws impact on case study research.

Software Maintenance Research in the PROGRESS Project for Predictable Embedded Software Systems

PROGRESS is a project and strategic research centre at Mälardalen University in Sweden that is funded for 2006 -- 2010 by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF). PROGRESS research targets embedded software in the vehicular, automation, and telecom domains, focusing on the areas of component technology, verification and analysis for predictability, predictable execution, as well as reuse and maintenance of legacy embedded software. We first describe the funding, organization and research areas of PROGRESS, and then give several examples of research that addresses maintenance of legacy embedded software with the goal to improve program comprehension, quality assurance, and debugging. Specifically, we describe research in tracing and trace visualization, impact analysis of temporal behavior, slicing, and system-specific static analyses.