Re: Software Reuse -- do we really know what it is ? (long)

[dinucci@ogcvax.UUCP (David C. DiNucci)]

In article <titan.668> ijd@camcon.co.uk (Ian Dickinson) writes:
>> Xref: camcon comp.lang.ada:166 comp.lang.misc:164
>Hence a solution:  we somehow encode _abstractions_ of the ideas and place
>these in the library - in a form which also supplies some knowledge about the
>way that they should be used.  The corollary of this is that we need more
>sophisticated methods for using the specifications in the library.  
>(Semi)-automated transformations seem to be the answer to me.
>
>Thus we start out with a correct (or so assumed) specification,  apply
>correctness-preserving transormation operators,  and so end up with a correct
>implementation in our native tongue (Ada, Prolog etc, as you will).  The
>transformations can be interactively guided to fit the precise circumstance.
>[Credit]  I originally got this idea from my supervisor: Dr Colin Runciman
>@ University of York.

In his Phd thesis defense here at Oregon Graduate Center, Dennis
Volpano presented his package that did basically this.  Though certainly
not of production quality, the system was able to take an abstraction
of a stack and, as a separate module, a description of a language and
data types within the language (in this case integer array and file,
if I remember correctly), and produce code which was an instantiation
of the abstraction - a stack implemented as an array or as a file.

I haven't actually read Dennis' thesis, so I don't know what the
limitations of constraints on his approach are.  I believe he is
currently employed in Texas at MCC.
---
Dave DiNucci        dinucci@Oregon-Grad