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用于系统地更改对象，同时保留重要的属性沿着这样的更改。 结构化变革理论解决了这个问题。总体研究目标是找到健全的变革管理的原则，并建立一个理论基础的支持工具的发展。其中一个特别的目标是开发特定领域的语言，用户可以使用这些语言有效地管理各种软件应用程序中的更改。首先，开发了一种灵活的变化表示。基于这种表示，法律的变化代数将被建立，以确定属性保持转换，可以支持健全的变化过渡。这项工作是伴随着发展的算法，为增量检查的财产保护。最终，该理论将使工具的开发，帮助用户有效地管理对象的演变。这一目标的支持下的编辑和探索结构化对象及其变化的交互原则的调查。建立在理论基础之上，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，在该地区的变化表示的程序，这样的DSL将产生新的，理论上成立的支持面向功能的编程和软件产品线。在电子表格、网站等方面，这种领域特定语言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.