November 19th 5:00 for 5:15 - 6:30 pm 2008 — Massey University Research Projects
This talk is an overview of some of the research projects in the Software Engineering program at Massey University. The focus is on the projects that have resulted in (open-source) tools that are useful for real-world software engineers. Most of these tools are published as Eclipse plugins and can be installed through the Eclipse update mechanism.
Projects:
- The WebOfPatterns project is about design pattern formalisation. Patterns are defined in XML/RDF, and the formal definition can be used by tools to X-Ray projects for pattern instances. This gives new insides into system design. The WebOfPattern client for Eclipse is such a software X-Ray we have developed for Java.
- Barrio is a tool that can be used in order to analyse the dependency graph of large prgograms. In particular, Barrio recognises modular structures and refactoring opportunities. The tool is particularly useful when large monolithic systems must be refactored into components. The development of Barrio is sponsored by Kiwiplan and FRST.
- Take is business rule compiler for Java. Rules can be written in a domain-specific scripting language, and optimised Java code can be generated (at design- or runtime) from these scripts. There are two important differences between Take and traditional rule engines like JRules or Drools: Firstly, Take is based on on-demand (lazy) computing and therefore suitable to analyse large external fact sets. Secondly, Take generates an API to access the rules used to generate the code at runtime. This is a departure from the traditional black-box computing paradigm, and addresses some important business use cases.
- Treaty is a contract framework for dynamic component models like OSGi and its derivatives. The aim is to write better specifications for collaborating components, and to check component assemblies against these contracts at runtime (verification). For this purpose, we have developed a special JUnit test runner that supports dependency injection.
Speaker
Jens Dietrich
Jens is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the School of Engineering and Advanced Technology (SEAT) at the Turitea (Palmerston North) Campus of Massey University. He is the major leader of the BE Software Engineering program at Massey. Jens has a Master in Mathematics and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Leipzig. He has worked for a couple of years in industry as consultant in Germany, Namibia, Switzerland and the UK, and returned in 2003 to academia. His research interests are in the areas of design pattern formalisation, software componentry, agile software engineering techniques and business rule automation.
Host
ninetwenty career agents
Level 10
Cigna House
Cnr Willis and Mercer Streets
Wellington
The host kindly provided refreshments for this month's event. The Java User Group thanks our host!
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