SBIR Phase I: A Programming Language-Driven Approach to Building IoT, Mobile and Web Applications

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力涉及网络、移动和物联网应用，这些应用为社会创造了巨大的经济价值。未来10年，仅物联网应用就将增加约2万亿美元的经济价值。然而，为了充分发挥其经济潜力，需要创造高价值的应用，并以低成本和快速的方式将其推向市场。该项目开发的产品将显著降低开发成本，提高质量，并将这些应用程序更快地推向市场。该计划也将对计算机科学教育产生重大影响。鉴于高中和大学对编程的兴趣日益浓厚，该项目将提供软件工具和教育材料，学生可以使用这些工具和材料构建新颖的应用程序，而无需学习各种语言和工具来尝试不同的移动和物联网设备。此外，对物联网的兴趣引发了创客运动，低成本的软件和硬件工具被用来制造智能物体。这个项目生产的工具将进一步降低创客社区的进入门槛。这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目解决了开发物联网、移动和Web应用程序的问题。由于设备性能、平台支持（iOS、Android、Windows）和资源（内存、CPU、电源）的差异，开发这些应用程序极具挑战性。构建这样的应用程序通常意味着使用不同的编程语言、工具、库和平台支持重写大量的应用程序代码。这导致了高开发和管理成本，跨平台的不一致和糟糕的产品体验，以及低软件质量。这个项目通过使用语言驱动的方法来解决这个问题。在这种方法中，专门设计了一种新语言来为各种形式的异构（包括硬件、功能、资源和抽象异构）提供抽象。编译器和代码生成器使用抽象的语义属性来生成为每个设备定制的代码。第一阶段的项目将为几个移动和物联网平台开发针对该语言的工具和库。第一阶段的结果将是一组工具，当给出一个程序和设备的描述时，这些工具将为每个设备生成代码，在每个设备上分发和安装二进制文件，并管理设备的二进制文件。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project involves Web, Mobile and IoT applications, which generate significant economic value for society. IoT applications alone will add about $2T in economic value over the next 10 years. However, in order to fully realize the economic potential, high value applications will need to be created and brought to the market at low cost and quickly. This project will develop products that will significantly reduce development cost, improve quality, and bring these applications to market faster. The proposed project will also have significant impact on computer science education. Given the growing interest in programming at high school and college levels, the project will produce software tools and educational material that students can use to build novel applications without needing to learn a wide variety of languages and tools to experiment with different mobile and IoT devices. Further, interest in IoT has given rise to the maker movement, where low cost software and hardware tools are being used to build smart objects. Tools produced by this project will further lower the barrier of entry for the maker community. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project addresses the problem of developing IoT, Mobile and Web applications. Developing these applications is extremely challenging because of the differences in device capabilities, platform support (iOS vs. Android vs. Windows), and resources (memory, CPU, power). Building such applications often has meant rewriting a large percentage of the application code using different programming languages, tools, libraries and platform support. This has resulted in high development and management costs, inconsistent and poor product experience across platforms, and low software quality. This project addresses the problem by using a language-driven approach. In this approach, a new language is designed specifically to provide abstractions for the various forms of heterogeneity (including hardware, capability, resource and abstraction heterogeneities). Compilers and code generators use the semantic properties of the abstractions to generate code customized for each device. The Phase 1 project will develop tools and libraries for targeting the language for several mobile and IoT platforms. The outcome of Phase 1 will be a set of tools, which when given a program and a description of devices, will generate code for each device, distribute and install the binaries on each device, and manage the binaries for the devices.