Mobile agent‐based computational steering for distributed applications

The mobile agent‐based computational steering (MACS) for distributed applications is presented in this article. In the MACS, a mobile agent platform, Mobile‐C, is embedded in a program through the Mobile‐C library to support C/C++ mobile agent code. Runtime replaceable algorithms of a program are represented as agent services in C/C++ source code and can be replaced with new ones through mobile agents. In the MACS, a mobile agent created and deployed by a user from the steering host migrates to computing hosts successively to replace algorithms of running programs that constitute a distributed application without the need of stopping the execution and recompiling the programs. The methodology of dynamic algorithm alteration in the MACS is described in detail with an example of matrix operation. The Mobile‐C library enables the integration of Mobile‐C into any C/C++ programs to carry out computational steering through mobile agents. The source code level execution of mobile agent code facilitates handling issues such as portability and secure execution of mobile agent code. In the MACS, the network load between the steering and computing hosts can be reduced, and the successive operations of a mobile agent on multiple computing hosts are not affected whether the steering host stays online or not. The employment of the middle‐level language C/C++ enables the MACS to accommodate the diversity of scientific and engineering fields to allow for runtime interaction and steering of distributed applications to match the dynamic requirements imposed by the user or the execution environment. An experiment is used to validate the feasibility of the MACS in real‐world mobile robot applications. The experiment replaces a mobile robot's behavioral algorithm with a mobile agent at runtime. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Accurate garbage collection in uncooperative environments revisited

Implementing a concurrent programming language such as Java by means of a translator to an existing language is attractive as it provides portability over all platforms supported by the host language and reduces development time—as many low‐level tasks can be delegated to the host compiler. The C and C++ programming languages are popular choices for many language implementations due to the availability of efficient compilers on a wide range of platforms. For garbage‐collected languages, however, they are not a perfect match as no support is provided for accurately discovering pointers to heap‐allocated data on thread stacks. We evaluate several previously published techniques and propose a new mechanism, lazy pointer stacks, for performing accurate garbage collection in such uncooperative environments. We implemented the new technique in the Ovm Java virtual machine with our own Java‐to‐C/C++ compiler using GCC as a back‐end compiler. Our extensive experimental results confirm that lazy pointer stacks outperform existing approaches: we provide a speedup of 4.5% over Henderson's accurate collector with a 17% increase in code size. Accurate collection is essential in the context of real‐time systems, we thus validate our approach with the implementation of a real‐time concurrent garbage collection algorithm. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Debugging mixed‐environment programs with Blink

Programmers build large‐scale systems with multiple languages to leverage legacy code and languages best suited to their problems. For instance, the same program may use Java for ease of programming and C to interface with the operating system. These programs pose significant debugging challenges, because programmers need to understand and control code across languages, which often execute in different environments. Unfortunately, traditional multilingual debuggers require a single execution environment. This paper presents a novel composition approach to building portable mixed‐environment debuggers, in which an intermediate agent interposes on language transitions, controlling and reusing single‐environment debuggers. We implement debugger composition in Blink, a debugger for Java, C, and the Jeannie programming language. We show that Blink is (i) simple: it requires modest amounts of new code; (ii) portable: it supports multiple Java virtual machines, C compilers, operating systems, and component debuggers; and (iii) powerful: composition eases debugging, while supporting new mixed‐language expression evaluation and Java native interface bug diagnostics. To demonstrate the generality of interposition, we build prototypes and demonstrate debugger language transitions with C for five of six other languages (Caml, Common Lisp, C#, Perl 5, Python, and Ruby) without modifications to their debuggers. Using real‐world case studies, we show that diagnosing language interface errors require prior single‐environment debuggers to restart execution multiple times, whereas Blink directly diagnoses them with one execution. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stack virtualization for source level debugging

The compilation of high‐level languages to general‐purpose execution platforms poses some challenges when it comes to debugging. Typically, abstractions that are not natively supported by the execution platform must be emulated with intermediate data structures and function calls. Unfortunately, the details of the emulation are visible in the execution stack, and this unwanted information greatly reduces the effectiveness of debuggers. This paper presents a general method for constructing a virtual view of the stack, in order to mask intermediate function calls that were generated to emulate high‐level abstractions, or even to recover logical frame information that was lost during the compilation process. In particular, virtual views enable the visualization of two disjoint code representations (e.g. native code and interpreted code) as a single unified stack. We illustrate this method by showing how to handle the compilation of Bigloo, a dialect of the Scheme programming language. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Programming Languages in Economics

Young economists sometimes ask which computer programming languages they should learn. This paper answers that question by suggesting that they begin with a high level language like GAUSS, GAMS, Mathematica, Maple or MATLAB depending on their field of specialization in economics. Then they should work down to one of the low level languages such as Fortran, Basic, C, C++ or Java depending on the planned areas of application. Finally, they should proceed to the languages which are used to develop graphical interfaces and internet applications, viz. Visual Basic, C, C++ or Java.     

C/C++代码自动生成脚本语言接口的实现

对于开发灵活的科学软件来说,脚本语言是一个强大的工具。然而开发人员经常遇到一个问题：如何将编译过的C／C 代码集成到一个解释器。为了解决上述问题,设计了一个可扩展的编译器——接口产生器(IG)。IG主要任务是把编译过的C／C 代码集成到脚本语言解释器中。因此,该文的主要目的就是解决上述相关问题。     

Comparing observed bug and productivity rates for Java and C++

An experiment was conducted to compare programmer productivity and defect rates for Java and C++. A modified version of the Personal Software Process (PSP) was used to gather defect rate, bug rate, and productivity data on C++ and Java during two real world development projects. A bug is defined to be a problem detected during testing or deployment. A defect is either a bug, or an error detected during compile time. A typical C++ program had two to three times as many bugs per line of code as a typical Java program. C++ also generated between 15 per cent and 50 per cent more defects per line, and perhaps took six times as long to debug. Java was between 30 per cent and 200 per cent more productive, in terms of lines of code per minute. When defects were measured against development time, Java and C++ showed no difference, but C++ had two to three times as many bugs per hour. Statistics were generated using Student's t‐test at a 95 per cent confidence level. Some discussion of why the differences occurred is included, but the reasons offered have not been tested experimentally. The study is limited to one programmer over two projects, so it is not a definitive experimental result. The programmer was experienced in C++, but only learning Java, so the results would probably favour Java more strongly for equally‐experienced programmers. The experiment shows that it is possible to experimentally measure the fitness of a programming language. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A type-safe embedding of SQL into Java using the extensible compiler framework J%

J% is an extension of the Java programming language that efficiently supports the integration of domain-specific languages. In particular, J% allows the embedding of domain-specific language code into Java programs in a syntax-checked and type-safe manner. This paper presents J%׳s support for the sql language. J% checks the syntax and semantics of sql statements at compile-time. It supports query validation against a database schema or through execution to a live database server. The J% compiler generates code that uses standard jdbc api calls, enhancing runtime efficiency and security against sql injection attacks.     

Toward Automated Support for Transparent Interoperable Queries

Many Object-Oriented Databases (OODBs) use programming languages that predate Java, such as C++, CLOS and Smalltalk. Thus, there is a growing need for interoperating these OODBs with new applications that require Java. Unfortunately, there are few mechanisms that allow software developers to easily integrate Java applications with non-Java OODBs. Although various interoperability mechanisms have been developed over the years, these approaches have some significant drawbacks in practice. They are often difficult to use, provide little, if any, automated support, and produce software that is difficult to engineer and maintain. In this paper, we describe an interoperability approach that allows application developers to seamlessly and transparently access non-Java OODBs from Java applications. We first present JOQL, a Java-based object query language that we are developing. JOQL queries are embedded in Java applications and are used to perform queries over C++-based OODBs. We also describe an accompanying toolset that processes Java programs containing JOQL queries. The toolset produces all the necessary code allowing Java applications to access and manipulate a C++-based OODB. As a result, application developers are free to work in Java without having to concern themselves with the details of interoperating with C++. Finally, we provide some preliminary experimental data that demonstrates our approach incurs a reasonable performance overhead.     

A comparison of object-oriented programming in four modern languages

Object-oriented programming has become a widely used, important programming paradigm that is supported in many different languages. C++ has become the most widely used object-oriented language and many C++ programmers are unfamiliar with the different approaches taken by other languages in the paradigm. This paper is intended as an introduction to a broad range of ideas in object-oriented programming. Specifically, we introduce four modern programming languages that support object-oriented programming (Oberon-2, Modula-3, Sather and Self), and show how a simple application is coded in these languages. While each of these programming languages provide support for inheritance, dynamic dispatch, code reuse, and information hiding, they do so in very different ways and with varying levels of efficiency and simplicity. The use of a simple example, based on a common programming problem, facilitates our comparison. We have coded the application in all of these languages, including C++, and we compare the compile times, object code sizes, and run times of the available implementations. Implementations of all the languages compared and all of the programs we measure are available on the Internet. Ultimately, our goal is to encourage and facilitate programmers in understanding and exploring a variety of object-oriented programming languages.     

Tice: A real-time language compilable using C++ compilers

Model-based development (MBD) holds the promise to capture potential timing problems in embedded software during the early phases of the development, securing the production of bug-free embedded software. For most MBD approaches, the source code is just an intermediate artifact that can be generated automatically from the models. This assumption clashes with an undeniable fact: a large share of the commercial embedded software exploits existing libraries or is developed using C/C++ natively. A way to reconcile the ambitions of MBD with the use of a programming language is by offering new language constructs and an innovative compilation tool-chain that prevents model error and timing problems “by construction.” However, the persistent popularity of C/C++ among embedded programmers and the limited availability of tools have severely limited the uptake of alternative programming languages for embedded software. Therefore, we propose an original route. Our language proposal, named Tice, has been shaped as a C++ active library. Tice retains full compatibility with existing C++ code, which can be integrated easily into new Tice-based projects. The enforcement of Tice syntax and semantics can be made by a standard C++ compiler, forgoing the need for new tools. In this article, we describe Tice's syntax, semantics, and model of computation and communication. We demonstrate Tice's practical applicability on an industrial scale use-case and give ample evidence for Tice's efficient compilation using off-the-shelf C++ compilers. Finally, we show Tice's code generation process.     

Simple and safe SQL queries with C++ templates

Most large software applications rely on an external relational database for storing and managing persistent data. Typically, such applications interact with the database by first constructing strings that represent SQL statements, and then submitting these for execution by the database engine. The fact that these statements are only checked for correctness at runtime is a source for many potential defects, including type and syntax errors and vulnerability to injection attacks.The AraRat system presented here offers a method for dealing with these difficulties by coercing the host C++ compiler to do the necessary checks of the generated strings. A library of templates and preprocessor directives is used to embed in C++ a little language representing an augmented relational algebra formalism. Type checking of this embedded language, carried out by our template library, assures, at compile-time, the correctness and safety of the generated SQL strings. All SQL statements constructed by AraRat are guaranteed to be syntactically correct, and type safe with respect to the database schema. Moreover, AraRat statically ensures that the generated statements are immune to all injection attacks.The standard techniques of “expression templates” and “compile-time symbolic derivation” for compile-time representation of symbolic structures, are enhanced in our system. We demonstrate the support of a type system and a symbol table lookup of the symbolic structure. A key observation of this work is that type equivalence of instantiated nominally typed generics in C++ (as well as other languages, e.g., Java) is structural rather than nominal. This makes it possible to embed the structural type system, characteristic to persistent data management, in the nominal type system of C++.For some of its advanced features, AraRat relies on two small extensions to the standard C++ language: the typeof pseudo operator and the __COUNTER__ preprocessor macro.     

An intermediate language to define dynamic semantics

An instruction set is given for an abstract machine which uses a pushdown stack as its principal memory. The proposed instructions serve the similar purposes of (1) defining the dynamic semantics of programming languages by describing the operations of programs on the abstract machine and (2) describing an intermediate language to be used in compiling programming languages into machine language. It is shown how the intermediate language can be used in the translation of the programming languages ADA, FORTRAN and PASCAL into IBM 360 assembly language and advantages over other intermediate languages such as three-address code and P-code.     

嵌入式系统规范语言

规范语言是整个嵌入式系统设计方法学的核心。归纳总结了嵌入式系统规范语言的发展过程，并针对当前嵌入式系统的发展趋势。说明了嵌入式系统规范和规范语言的设计需求，进而介绍比较了两种重要的基于C／C＋＋语言的新的规范语言SystemC和SpecC，最后阐述了基于C／C＋＋的规范语言的看法，并展望了未来规范语言的发展。     

CBack: A simple tool for backtrack programming in C

Backtrack programming is such a powerful technique for problem solving that a number of languages, especially in the area of artificial intelligence, have built-in facilities for backtrack programming. This paper describes CBack, a simple, but general tool for backtrack programming in the programming language C. The use of the tool is illustrated through examples of a tutorial nature. In addition to the usual depth-first search strategy, CBack provides for the more general heuristic best-first search strategy. The implementation of CBack is described in detail. The source code, shown in its full length, is entirely written in ANSI C and highly portable across diverse computer architectures and C compilers.     

Ruby Extensions

Using languages such as Ruby for middleware integration projects is straightforward when developers can create pure dynamic language applications that access preexisting services, even though such services (often considered "legacy") are typically implemented in "traditional" middleware languages such as Java, C++, or C. Are dynamic languages like Ruby still useful in situations that require directly coupling the dynamic code to the legacy code? Here, Vinoski explores what it takes to cleanly integrate Ruby into an existing C++ middleware system.