REUSABLE SOFTWARE BASE DEVELOPMENT - SOURCE CODE TAILORING

AMONG THE MANY SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CONCEPTS DEVELOPED TO INCREASE PROGRAMMER PRODUCTIVITY, ONE OF THE MOST PROMISING AND MOST SOUGHT AFTER IS REUSE OF EXISTING, PROVEN SOFTWARE. A GENERAL PROGRAM, ALSO REFERRED TO AS THE "ARCHETYPED SOURCE", CAN BE ADAPTED TO A BROAD SPECTRUM OF SPECIFIC SITUATIONS. AN EXAMPLE IS A PROGRAM FOR MULTI-SENSOR INTEGRATION, WHICH CAN BE INSTANTIATED FOR VARIOUS COMBINATIONS OF ACTUAL TYPES OF SENSORS. ADA AND OTHER HIGH-LEVEL LANGUAGES OFFER ABSTRACTIONS FOR WRITING GENERAL FORMS OF PROGRAMS; THESE ARE INTENDED TO BE USED BY THE PROGRAMMER TO ADAPT THE PROGRAM ON A CASE-BY-CASE BASIS. IN THIS PROPOSAL, WE SHOW HOW A "TAILORING" SYSTEM CAN UTILIZE ABSTRACTIONS IN THE PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE; IT ALSO ALLOWS THE DESIGNER TO FORMULATE OTHER ABSTRACTIONS IN A METANOTATION FOR DESCRIBING THE GENERAL PROGRAM AND ITS SPECIFIC FORMS. THUSTHE NOTION OF AN "ARCHETYPED SOURCE" CAN BE QUITE POWERFUL IN THE CONTEXT OF THE DERIVATION OF APPLICATION-SPECIFIC "ACTUAL SOURCES" FROM IT. DURING THE COURSE OF THE PHASE I PROJECT, WE WILL USE SOME EXISTING APPLICATION-SPECIFIC SOFTWARE THAT AKM ASSOCIATES BUILT FOR THE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY (JPL) OF NASA, DEFINE "ARCHETYPED SOURCE" VERSION OF IT AND THE APPROPIATE METANOTATION FOR GENERATING ACTUAL SOURCE.