Little-JIL/Juliette: a process definition language and interpreter

ABSTRACT

Little-JIL, a language for programming coordination in processes is an executable, high-level language with a formal (yet graphical) syntax and rigorously defined operational semantics. The central abstraction in Little-JIL is the “step,” which is the focal point for coordination, providing a scoping mechanism for control, data, and exception flow and for agent and resource assignment. Steps are organized into a static hierarchy, but can have a highly dynamic execution structure including the possibility of recursion and concurrency.Little-JIL is based on two main hypotheses. The first is that coordination structure is separable from other process language issues. Little-JIL provides rich control structures while relying on separate systems for resource, artifact, and agenda management. The second hypothesis is that processes are executed by agents that know how to perform their tasks but benefit from coordination support. Accordingly, each Little-JIL step has an execution agent (human or automated) that is responsible for performing the work of the step.This approach has proven effective in supporting the clear and concise expression of agent coordination for a wide variety of software, workflow, and other processes.

REFERENCES

• 1: Nicholas Carriero , David Gelernter, How to write parallel programs: a first course, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990
• 2: A. G. Cass , B. S Lerner , E. K. McCall , L. J. Osterweil , A. Wise, Logically Central, Physically Distributed Control in a Process Runtime Environment, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 1999
• 3: J. M. Cobleigh , L. A. Clarke , L. J. Osterweil, Verifying Properties of Process Definitions TITLE2:, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 1999
• 4: Eric K. McCall , Lori A. Clarke , Leon J. Osterweil, An adaptable generation approach to agenda management, Proceedings of the 20th international conference on Software engineering, p.282-291, April 19-25, 1998, Kyoto, Japan
• 5: Stanley M. Sutton, Jr. , Dennis Heimbigner , Leon J. Osterweil, APPL/A: a language for software process programming, ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), v.4 n.3, p.221-286, July 1995 [doi>10.1145/214013.214017]
• 6: Stanley M. Sutton, Jr. , Leon J. Osterweil, The design of a next-generation process language, Proceedings of the 6th European conference held jointly with the 5th ACM SIGSOFT international symposium on Foundations of software engineering, p.142-158, September 22-25, 1997, Zurich, Switzerland
• 7: A. Wise, Little-JIL 1.0 Language Report TITLE2:, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 1998

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
        D.2.11 Software Architectures
            Subjects: Languages (e.g., description, interconnection, definition)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.9 Management
          Subjects: Software process models (e.g., CMM, ISO, PSP)

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.3 Software Management
          Subjects: Software process

General Terms:
Design, Languages, Management, Performance, Theory

Keywords:
Little-JIL, coordination, process, process programming, workflow