Distributed Language-based Environments

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Language-based environments have been one of the foremost topics of programming environment research for many years, but little has been done to make them practical for groups of professional programmers working together on large software systems. Instead, language-based environments have been oriented primarily to the development of relatively small programs by individual programmers working alone. The goal of this research is to complete the development of a new system, MERCURY, that changes this situation. MERCURY generates language-based environments from attribute grammars. A generated environment can be used simultaneously by multiple programmers working on the same machine or on different machines distributed across a network. MERCURY uses a distributed attribute evaluation algorithm to provide immediate propagation of changes from one module to another, immediately informing programmers of errors in their modules caused by changes made by other programmers to other modules. Additional algorithms support high availability and reliability, so the programmers can continue working even when part of the network is broken or some machines are down, trusting that MERCURY will reestablish consistency as soon as the network or machine is restored. The work proposed involves developing new algorithms to support: distribution of arbitrary program units selected during operation; efficient propagation of aggregate attributes; and multiple versions and configuration of modules.