Deferring design pattern decisions and automating structural pattern changes using a design-pattern-based programming system

ABSTRACT

In the design phase of software development, the designer must make many fundamental design decisions concerning the architecture of the system. Incorrect decisions are relatively easy and inexpensive to fix if caught during the design process, but the difficulty and cost rise significantly if problems are not found until after coding begins. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to find incorrect design decisions during the design phase. To reduce the cost of expensive corrections, it would be useful to have the ability to defer some design decisions as long as possible, even into the coding stage. Failing that, tool support for automating design changes would give more freedom to revisit and change these decisions when needed. This article shows how a design-pattern-based programming system based on generative design patterns can support the deferral of design decisions where possible, and automate changes where necessary. A generative design pattern is a parameterized pattern form that is capable of generating code for different versions of the underlying design pattern. We demonstrate these ideas in the context of a parallel application written with the CO₂P₃S pattern-based parallel programming system. We show that CO₂P₃S can defer the choice of execution architecture (shared-memory or distributed-memory), and can automate several changes to the application structure that would normally be daunting to tackle late in the development cycle. Although we have done this work with a pattern-based parallel programming system, it can be generalized to other domains.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.6 Programming Environments
          Subjects: Integrated environments

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.1 PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES
      D.1.3 Concurrent Programming
          Subjects: Parallel programming
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.3 Coding Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: Object-oriented programming
      D.2.7 Distribution, Maintenance, and Enhancement

General Terms:
Human Factors, Languages

Keywords:
Design patterns, design decisions, object-oriented frameworks, parallel programming, software maintenance