SHF: Small: Change Theory for Variation-Aware Programming

在软件维护和许多其他领域中，变更管理是一个困难且容易出错的过程。由于缺乏理论，很少有工具和方法可以系统地改变对象，同时保留这些变化的重要属性。结构化变化理论解决了这个问题。研究的总体目标是找到完善变革管理的原则，并为配套工具的开发建立理论基础。一个特定的目标是开发特定于领域的语言，用户可以使用这些语言来有效地管理各种软件应用程序中的更改。采用以下技术方法。首先，开发了一个灵活的变更表示。基于这种表示，将建立变化代数的定律，以识别能够支持合理变化转换的保留属性的转换。这项工作伴随着财产保存增量检查算法的发展。最终，该理论将有助于开发工具，帮助用户有效地管理对象的演变。这一目标得到了对交互原则的研究的支持，这些原则是对结构化对象及其变化的编辑和探索的基础。在理论基础之上，领域特定语言的开发将为用户提供具体的帮助，以表达比底层形式化模型提供的简单一步操作更复杂的转换和组合。具体来说，在程序的变更表示方面，这样的DSL将为面向功能的编程和软件产品线提供新的、理论上的支持。在电子表格、网站等环境中，此类dsl的开发将使数百万用户能够以更系统的方式处理变化。

The management of changes is a difficult and error-prone process in software maintenance and many other fields. Due to a lack of theory, there are few tools and methods available to systematically change objects while preserving important properties along with such changes. This problem is addressed by the theory of structured change. The overall research objective is to find principles for sound change management and to establish a theoretical foundation for the development of supporting tools. One particular goal is the development of domain-specific languages, which users can employ to effectively manage changes in all kinds of software applications.The following technical approach is pursued. First, a flexible change representation is developed. Based on this representation, laws of a change algebra will be established to identify property-preserving transformations that can support sound change transitions. This work is accompanied by the development of algorithms for the incremental checking of property preservation. Ultimately, the theory will enable the development of tools that help users to effectively manage the evolution of objects. This goal is supported by the investigation of interaction principles that underly the editing and exploration of structured objects and their changes. Building on top of the theoretical foundation, the development of domain-specific languages will provide concrete help for users to express more sophisticated transformations and combinations than the simple one-step operations that are offered by the underlying formal model. Specifically, in the area of change representations for programs such a DSL will yield new, theoretically founded support for feature-oriented programming and software product lines. In the context of spreadsheets, web sites, etc. the development of such DSLs will empower millions of users to deal in a more systematic way with changes.