A distributed program composition system
Abstract
This thesis investigates a graphical technique for creating distributed computer programs and describes a prototype implementation which serves as a testbed for the concepts herein. The type of programs under examination is restricted to those comprising relatively heavyweight parts that intercommunicate by passing messages of typed objects. Such programs are often presented visually as a directed graph with computer program parts as the nodes and communication channels as the edges. This class of programs, called parts-based programs, is not well supported by existing computer systems; much manual work is required to describe the program to the system, establish the communication paths, accommodate the heterogeneity of data types, and to locate the parts of the program on the various systems involved. The work described in this thesis solves most of these problems by providing an interface for describing parts-based programs in this class in a way that closely models the way programmers think about them: using sketches of digraphs. Program parts, the computational nodes of the larger program system, are categorized in libraries and are accessed with browsers. The process of programming has the programmer draw the program graph interactively. Heterogeneity is automatically accommodated by the insertion of type translators where necessary between the parts. Many decisions are necessary in the creation of a comprehensive tool for interactive creation of programs in this class. This thesis explores the possibilities and elaborates on the issues behind such decisions.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Comer, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Computer science
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