Juha Hautamäki

Generating Application Development Environments for Java Frameworks

An application framework is a collection of classes implementing the shared architecture of a family of applications. A technique is proposed for defining the specialization interface of a framework in such a way that it can be used to automatically produce a task-driven programming environment for guiding the application development process. Using the environment, the application developer can incrementally construct an application that follows the conventions implied by the framework architecture. The environment provides specialization instructions adapting automatically to the application-specific context, and an integrated source code editor which responds to actions that conflict with the given specialization interface. The main characteristics and implementation principles of the tool are explained.

Architecture-oriented programming using FRIED

Implementing application-specific code conforming to architectural rules and conventions can be tedious. We will demonstrate a tool prototype for architecture-oriented programming that takes an architectural description as a set of programming patterns and provides an interactive task-based programming environment for the architecture. Incorporating adaptive code generation and documentation, the tool provides a convenient way to adopt as well as effectively reuse a framework or architectural standard such as Java Beans.

Managing variability using heterogeneous feature variation patterns

Feature-driven variability is viewed as an instance of multi-dimensional separation of concerns. We argue that feature variation concerns can be presented as pattern-like entities – called feature variation patterns – cross-cutting heterogeneous artifacts. We show that a feature variation pattern, covering a wide range of artifact types from a feature model to implementation, can be used to manage feature-driven variability in a software development process. A prototype tool environment has been developed to demonstrate the idea, supporting the specification and use of heterogeneous feature variation patterns. We illustrate the idea with a small example taken from J2EE, and further study the practical applicability of the approach in an industrial product-line.

A Language Implementation Framework in Java

An object-oriented language implementation environment called TaLE is presented. TaLE consists of an OO framework that provides basic language implementation mechanisms, and of a graphical editor that supports visual syntactic specifications and various kinds of language-oriented specializations, generating the desired subclasses for the framework. Parsing is based on a model in which parsing information is distributed at runtime among the metaobjects representing language structures. The TaLE approach facilitates the reuse of both syntactic and semantic classes.

Pattern-Oriented Framework Engineering Using FRED

Application frameworks are reusable architectures used to improve the software development process. Although design patterns may be used in designing, implementing, and documenting architectural constructs, lacking a systematical approach frameworks are still hard to design and reuse. This paper presents the methodology and the set of supporting tools that provide a methodical practice for applying design patterns in software engineering, especially when constructing reusable designs such as application frameworks.

Generating Pattern-Based Web Tutorials for Java Frameworks

Application frameworks are a popular technique to implement product-line architectures. The problem of communicating the relevant properties of a framework for application developers is studied. It is argued that a conventional API specification is not sufficient for a framework, but a pattern-based specification of the extension interface is required. A technique to generate a pattern-based tutorial for the extension interface of a framework is described, relying on an existing tool developed for the generation of a programming environment for a framework.