C H A I M S: Compiling High-level Access Interfaces for Multi-site Software Towards the Science of Component Engineering

Summaries of papers related to our research in software composition:

• paper summaries (each summary one file)
• paper summaries as one file
• corresponding paper collection

Minutes of CHAIMS meetings:

• List of weekly minutes
• July '98 workshop: ps format, rtf format
• Objectives of CHAIMS as defined July 98 (in ppt)

Various notes:

• Comparison of 3 application domains for CHAIMS including the Aircraft Design System (fm, ps)
• Proposal Syntax and semantic  language, protocol, types, ... for CHAIMS 2.0, July 1998, rtf-format
• As a record: First implementations of CHAIMS examples (CORBA, DCE, C++)

 Discussion Issues:

Client Id: definition, generation and storage. Also, notion of stateless servers.

Interpreter instead of compiler

Reports:

• Report to DARPA-EDCS July 1998 (see also EDCS homepage )

Proposals:

• KDI (1998), not accepted yet very close
• NGS (1999)

Schedules:

• Task-list and open points, Summer 1998: ps format
• Work-assignments and open points, Spring 1998: rtf format
• Work-assignments, Winter 1998
• Summer & Automn 1997 Schedule
• Winter & Spring 1997 Schedule (graphical) 12/19/96: (graphical, ps format), (textual)

Future Research Issues

• Dataflow, Controlflow: how is that solved in other systems? Maybe xploring more and writing a paper about the three categories of systems mentioned in  /CHAIMS/Doc/Details/controldata.html .
• How compares CLAM with CLOS, Corba IDL, Ada, Scripting Language for component composition developped at University of Bern (Oscar Nierstratz), Component C++ graphical input, Rapide, .........

Enhancements necessary to CLAM? Examples of more complex megaprograms in CLAM using helper modules for lists etc?
• Progressive and partial abstract: why? definition? examples? benefits? similarities to something in databases (ask other db-people) or in other fields of CS (ask Gio, check references)? What are main issues of progressive and partial abstract? How does it work in CHAIMS? Is CHAIMS limiting or supporting for it? How would it look like in other languages? What is the connection between autonomous megamodules and progressive/partial extraction? How to write wrappers for it? Special difficulties with partial extract?....
• Server availability, error-handling: Accounting of services,  problem of unavailability of services (temporarily, permanent, being unavailable from the start of the execution of a megaprogram, becoming unavailable during execution). How is communications failure, network partitioning, etc. addressed?
• Evolution of systems build by a CHAIMS megaprogram: how are changed services introduced into an existing system? versioning? what happens if the interface of a service changes, or a service disappears? notification of megaprogrammers and end-users? configuration management? changes in quality?
• Repositoy: why not use one of the current available directory services (see also Java classes for accessing various kinds of naming and directory services)? These publicly available services would solve the problem of distributing and accessing the repository. How is our repository distributed? Updated at all client's sites immediately after changes have taken place at a provider's side?

• A more extensive review of relevant literature is necessary, because most references are concerned either with one special field of examples (molecular biology) or deals with basic literature. .... Other fields of interest should be cited.
• Missing:
• a more detailed comparison with CORBA, especially the added value by CHAIMS compared to the usage of Server Application Objects in CORBA
• why is RMI over IIOP not enough?
• comparison with Enterprise Java Beans
• comparison with SWAP
• "incorporating knowledge embedded in programs" is a reasonable claim for megaprogramming, but the nature of hwo CPAM allows interaction with that knowledge appears to be seriously limited by CPAM's simplicity.