CAREER: A Linguistic Approach to Software Development

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NSF CAREER 0347902A Linguistic Approach to Software DevelopmentCristina Videira LopesUniversity of California - IrvinceSoftware in Science, Engineering and Business requires domain expertise. But software development is worsened by the fact that the description mechanisms - programming languages - are inadequate for conveying relevant information to people. As a result, software systems become fragile monuments of code that only software "artisans" dare to modify. Work will be conducted within Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) and Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP), with the aim of exploring their benefits in software development. DSLs will be developed within ubiquitous computing, as it includes several fields of expertise. The objective is the identification of abstractions and the integration of different pieces of specification. A greater objective is to find fundamental principles and techniques for the rapid development of DSLs. The following will be studied, developed and empirically evaluated: (1) Natural Language-based mechanisms for the support of more kinds of referencing, such as anaphora; (2) methods for developing domain-specific vocabularies; (3) techniques for the rapid development of DSLs.The goal is that the process of software development will be improved considerably by shortening expression gaps. The state of the art in both theory and practice of Programming and Software Engineering will beenhanced with a foundation for a new, important class of programming languages.