Jessie Dedecker

Ambient-Oriented programming in ambienttalk

A new field in distributed computing, called Ambient Intelligence, has emerged as a consequence of the increasing availability of wireless devices and the mobile networks they induce. Developing software for mobile networks is extremely hard in conventional programming languages because the network is dynamically demarcated. This leads us to postulate a suite of characteristics of future Ambient-Oriented Programming languages. A simple reflective programming language, called AmbientTalk, that meets the characteristics is presented. It is validated by implementing a collection of high level language features that are used in the implementation of an ambient messenger application.

Ambient-oriented programming in ambientTalk

A new field in distributed computing, called Ambient Intelligence, has emerged as a consequence of the increasing availability of wireless devices and the mobile networks they induce. Developing software for such mobile networks is extremely hard in conventional programming languages because of new distribution issues related to volatile network connections, dynamic network topologies and partial failures.

Ambient-oriented programming

A new field in distributed computing, called Ambient In-telligence, has emerged as a consequence of the increasing availability of wireless devices and the mobile networks they induce. Developing software for such mobile networks is extremely hard in conventional programming languages because the network is dynamically defined. This hardware phenomenon leads us to postulate a suite of characteristics of future Ambient-Oriented Programming languages. A simple re ective programming language kernel, called AmbientTalk, that meets these characteristics is subsequently presented. The power of the re ective kernel is illustrated by using it to conceive a collection of high level tentative ambient-oriented programming language features.

Ambient references: addressing objects in mobile networks

A significant body of research in ubiquitous computing deals with mobile networks, i.e. networks of mobile devices interconnected by wireless communication links. Due to the very nature of such mobile networks, addressing and communicating with remote objects is significantly more difficult than in their fixed counterparts. This paper reconsiders the remote object reference concept - one of the most fundamental programming ions of distributed programming languages - in the context of mobile networks. We describe four desirable characteristics of remote References in mobile networks, show how existing remote object References fail to exhibit them, and subsequently propose ambient references: remote object references designed for mobile networks.

Actors for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

Today mobile devices can interact with their environment through wireless communication. Wireless communication has a limited communication range, which introduces two major problems, currently not captured in distributed middleware. Firstly, they are less reliable and secondly they are extremely dynamic. Both problems complicate the development of mobile software. In this paper we extend the operational semantics of the actor model to capture these two properties by adding a single new concept to the model: the mailbox. This paper provides a foundation for new implementations of the actor language and frameworks that are usable in the context of mobile ad-hoc networks.

Object-oriented coordination in mobile ad hoc networks

We introduce an object-oriented referencing abstraction to express coordination between objects hosted on mobile devices interconnected by a wireless ad hoc network. On the one hand, we notice that the most popular communication paradigms for mobile ad hoc networks, such as publish/subscribe and tuple space architectures, promote loose coupling of collaborating participants. On the other hand, the paradigm in which many applications are developed is object-oriented, and traditional object referencing abstractions typically lack the beneficial loose coupling properties of aforementioned paradigms. This paper proposes to close the paradigmatic gap between an object-oriented language and its distributed communication infrastructure by introducing ambient references: loosely-coupled remote object references designed for mobile ad hoc networks.

Intersecting Classes and Prototypes

The object-oriented programming language design space consists of class-based and prototype-based languages. Both families have been shown to posses their advantages and disadvantages. Hybrid languages featuring both prototype-based and class-based mechanisms have been proposed as a solution. Unfortunately these languages not only unify the advantages but also the disadvantages of both families. We propose a more intersectional point of view and propose a language that inherits the advantages but shuns the disadvantages of both families.

Ambient-Oriented exception handling

Writing ambient-oriented software for mobile devices connected through wireless network connections provides new challenges in the field of exception handling. It involves dealing with issues such as asynchronous communication, moving hardware and software, only to name a few. Building on an analysis of the fundamental differences between mobile networks and their stationary counterparts, this paper establishes a set of criteria for an ambient-oriented exception handling mechanism. We subsequently present ambient conversations, a novel distributed exception handling mechanism that adheres to the prescribed criteria, and describe its realisation in the experimental ambient-oriented programming language AmbientTalk.

Ambient-oriented programming in AmbientTalk: combining mobile hardware with simplicity and expressiveness

A new field in distributed computing, called Ambient Intelligence, has emerged as a consequence of the increasing availability of wireless devices and the mobile networks they induce. Developing software for such mobile networks is extremely hard in conventional programming languages because the network is dynamically defined. We demonstrate a new distributed programming language named AmbientTalk, a research vehicle to experiment with expressive high-level language constructs for Ambient-Oriented Programming.

Towards a domain-specific aspect language for leasing in mobile ad hoc networks

Leasing provides a robust mechanism to manage reclamation of remote objects in mobile ad hoc networks. However, applying the leasing semantics on each remote object reference places a considerable burden on developers. Low-level leasing management details can be abstracted away as much as possible by means of dedicated language support. This paper focusses on the software engineering issues that arise using language support for leasing. We observe that the concerns dealing with leasing are inherently cross-cutting and argue in favour of a modularization of such concerns in an aspect. We propose a domain-specific aspect language (DSAL) for leasing which provides dedicated means to express the leasing concerns separately from the base functionality.