workshops

sunday

1

Object Technology and Product Lines

 convention centre
room 20

Many organizations that produce related software products within a specific market have discovered that they can amortize their technology investments across those products by adopting a product-line approach. A product line is a group of products sharing a common, managed set of features that satisfy specific needs of a selected market.

The potential costs and benefits associated with a product line are substantial. For software-intensive systems, a product line approach involves a sizable initial investment plus continuing maintenance costs. However, the potential benefits include reduced time to market, improved schedule and cost predictability, and improved product quality.

The architecture is the technical foundation that supports the product line. Architecture-based development is a process that utilizes the software architecture as the primary tool for the design, evolution, implementation, management, migration, and understanding of a software system.

Architecture-based development includes: understanding and modeling the domain requirements, developing or selecting the architecture, representing and communicating the architecture, evaluating the architecture, organizing the work products around the architecture, and adhering to the architecture throughout implementation and maintenance.

The dual life cycle approach utilizes, implicitly or explicitly, domain and application engineering. Domain engineering produces the reusable assets for the product line (including the architecture), while application engineering produces a specific product from those reusable assets.

Although we recognize that the organizational, business, and market factors are vital to the success of a product line, the focus of the workshop is technical. Further, we are primarily interested in the experiences of the participants in the application of object technologies to a software product line. The problems to be addressed include:

Organizers:

Gary Chastek, Software Engineering Institute
Email: gjc@sei.cmu.edu  

Felix Bachmann, Carnegie Bosch Institute
Patrick Donohoe, Software Engineering Institute

2

Classroom Reuse Experiences - What Makes Course Materials Reusable?

 convention centre
gazebo I

Last year we organized and participated in a very successful OOPSLA workshop on Reuse in the Curriculum. It attracted forty participants from four continents, which made it the largest of all the workshops at OOPSLA `97. Out of that workshop grew a database of courses in object technology ( http://www2.ncsu.edu/eos/project/csc/reuse-workshop/database.html ). The goal of this year's workshop is to encourage reuse of those course materials, and to offer guidance to educators in how to make their course materials reusable.

As we did last year, we want to differentiate the focus of this workshop from the focus of the Educators' Symposium. OOPSLA Educators' Symposia have been very effective in spreading the word about what can be done in an object-technology curriculum. But they have provided very little help in actually implementing these ideas. What was needed then was an opportunity for educators to get together and share course materials. Now that we have had that opportunity, we need to get together and discuss our experiences in reusing those materials.

Each participant will be asked to reuse at least one lecture or programming assignment, or several exam questions, from our reuse database or from a colleague whose materials are available on the Web. Participants will prepare a short report on their experiences, and submit it as their application to participate in the workshop. We will allow prospective reports ("here is the exercise I am going to reuse, and here are what I think the problems will be"), but participants should actually reuse it by the time of the workshop, and be prepared to report on their experiences.

Organizers:

Edward F. Gehringer, NCSU
Email: efg@eos.ncsu.edu  

Donald J. Bagert, Texas Tech University

3

A Paradigm Shift in Teaching OOT

pan pacific hotel
gazebo II

Since the emergence of Object Technology, users of OT have needed to be trained in its concepts and techniques, and educators and trainers have been struggling with how they can make teaching OT easier. OT is hard to teach because the paradigm shift applies equally to both students and teachers.

Pedagogical Patterns, which are patterns for teaching OOT and Empowering in Communication, a technique for reflective learning that encourages and motivates students to learn by using their own experience and then teaching other students what they've learned. Both techniques seem to be great ideas but we trainers often think that we never can use these methodologies because our students wouldn't take us seriously. In order to be successful in using these tools we have to change our attitudes.

In the proposed workshop we would like to collect the problems that occur over and over again when educating in academia or industry. The objective of this workshop is not collecting pedagogical patterns, although this could also happen as a side effect, but to explore a different teaching approach. The focus will be on how we as trainers have to change our thinking to use this different style of teaching.

Organizers:

Jutta Eckstein, Integral Development GmbH
Email: jeckstein@acm.org 

Richard S. Wiener, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

4

Behavioural Modeling in Object-Oriented Software Systems

 convention centre
room 7

The recent introduction of sophisticated commercial CASE tools that support object behaviour modeling and subsequently generate production-quality code has triggered significant interest in modeling and in analyzing high-level object behaviour. This day-long workshop will explore a number of open questions:

Organizers:

Kevin W. Smith, Northern Telecom
Email: kwsmith@nortel.ca  

Bran Selic, ObjecTime Limited

5

System Envisioning Workshop

pan pacific hotel
governor general b

Software systems are conceived out of an understanding and conceptualizing of a problem space. System Envisioning is about how we create possibilities for what the software system might and should do.

The workshop is motivated by an interest in sharing experiences on the relationships between problem domain understanding and creative thinking on formulating systems concepts. We are interested in how different types of thinking and action are involved in developing the Conceptual Architecture of a software solution.

System Envisioning is a creative process for establishing the possibility of viable system concepts and technologies by, first reaching a shared understanding of a problem situation and desired futures and then nominating solution architectures. System Envisioning is motivated by ideas from Checkland's work on Soft Systems Thinking, Beer's work on Viable Systems, Gelernter's work on Mirror Worlds, Morgan's work on "Imaginization", Van der Heijden's work on Scenarios and Miller's work on Living Systems metaphors.

We wish to share experiences on requirements elicitation and generation techniques that help us think "out-of-the-box". Through techniques such as fantasizing, scenario generation/enactment and future search, we attempt to experience what a new system will be like, and what was important to its creation. The possibility of new systems ideas are stimulated or denied by the opportunities or constraints that present themselves in the way we perceive and define organizational structures. System envisioning creates an opening for new possibility by allowing new ways of speaking about and seeing the world.

Organizer:

Ralph Hodgson, IBM Object Technology Practice
Email: rhodgson@us.ibm.com  

Martine Devos, Argo
Doug McDavid, IBM Consulting Group

6

Applying Software Architecture as a Method

convention centre
room 14

This workshop is focused on the problems associated with synthesizing software architecture, particularly in the context of Object-Orientation. The intent is for participants to experiment with methods, artifacts, and processes, addressing issues beyond architecture patterns and views. At last year's OOPSLA `97, the leaders of the workshop held an impromptu "Birds Of a Feather" on Object-Oriented Software Architecture. The BOF generated enormous enthusiasm and attracted over 50 software/systems architecture professionals. The consensus of last year's group was to continue the discussion as a formal OOPSLA `98 workshop.

Since architecture thrives on diversity, the plan for this workshop is to pool people from many diverse backgrounds to experiment with processes of architecture synthesis. We are particularly interested in methods of applying architecture that help us make better use of Object-Orientation. Architecture and O-O have a strong relationship, where O-O systems still depend on architecture to provide appropriately scoped flexibility, modularity, or reusability. A good architecture compliments the advantages of O-O, but a poor architecture can limit return on investment with O-O.

Organizer:

Thomas Mowbray, BluePrint Technologies
Email: mowbray@www.serve.com  

Raphael Malveaux, Eidea Labs, Inc.
Thad Scheer, Lockheed-Martin Mission Systems
Theresa Smith, Lockheed-Martin Mission Systems
Erik Stein, Amplitude, Inc.

7

How Software Architectures Learn - What happens after they are built?

 waterfront centre hotel
nootka room

In the book, "How Buildings Learn, What Happens After They're Built," Stewart Brand puts forward the proposal that buildings adapt best when constantly refined and reshaped by their occupants. His book and photographs capture the history and evolution of numerous buildings over time in a form that can be quickly understood by non-architects. Inspired by Brand's work, this workshop seeks to explore the analogous theme of how software systems change over time.

Billions of dollars are spent annually maintaining and adapting existing software systems. More so than is spent on creating new software. The current Y2K crisis has highlighted our dependence upon these existing systems, and the huge expenditure needed to adapt them so that they are reliable through to the next century.

Many software systems have been in existence for years. The software architecture that each embodies are forced to adapt and evolved over time in the face of ever changing requirements. Very few architects have sufficient foresight to anticipate where these changes are going to come from. In planning for change, some architects provide hooks for future evolution, but these hooks are seldom what is needed when the system needs to change.

This workshop raises the question of what happens to software systems as they evolve. What are the characteristics of a system's software architecture that enable it to be adaptable? How can software architects prepare a system for evolution?

Organizer:

Tom O'Rourke, Paine Webber Incorporated
Email: tom_orourke@acm.org  

Peter Long, Rolfe & Nolan plc

8

Business Object Design and Implementation IV: From Business Objects to Complex Adaptive Systems Complex Adaptive Systems

 pan pacific hotel
governor general c

This workshop is for people interested in improving approaches to business object design and implementation through use of patterns, interoperable components, object-oriented workflow, and Internet strategies for distributed enterprise systems.

Of particular interest are heterogeneous distributed workflow systems for operation of enterprises over intranets and extranets. These systems need to provide business object solutions for mobile agents, process engines, and systems that exhibit emergent behavior. Interactive, autonomous business object components may be intelligent agents roaming the net, performing complex tasks. Workflows in such systems must be managed in a different manner than the kind of systems being standardized by the Workflow Coalition of the OMG. Such systems exhibit complex behaviors, catastrophic events, and chaotic interactions. These phenomena have been studied under the umbrella of "Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS)" and are under intensive research for use in predictive economic simulations, the building of artificial life, computer models that can independently adapt and evolve, and "avatars" that can personally represent the creator in Internet transactions.

It would be useful to adapt the concepts in CAS research to the development of enterprise business object component systems. These ideas can help organize our discussion of business object systems.

Organizer:

Jeff Sutherland, IDX Systems Corporation
Email: jeff.sutherland@computer.org

Cory Casanave, Data Access Corporation
Haim Kilov, Merrill Lynch
Joaquin Miller, SHL Systemhouse
Dilip Patel, South Bank University

9

Formalizing UML. Why? How?

 waterfront centre hotel
sechelt room

A lot has been said and written about UML, the Unified Modeling Language. Nevertheless, we meet people every day that misunderstand it. There are some who think that UML came to encompass all existing object-oriented analysis and design methods. Others believe that we finally have a formal method that we can apply to obtain unambiguous specifications. Some think that UML will be used as a programming language.

In order to clarify the confusion generated around UML and to discuss its philosophy, it will be useful to answer, during this workshop, a few fundamental questions. What is UML after all? Is UML the ultimate discovery that will solve the problems of developing large and complex software systems, and solve the problem of software maintenance? Is UML so useful that we are forced to use it, to learn it? What are UML strengths and weaknesses? In such a rich notation, is everything always useful? How can we use UML without getting bogged down in such a long list of techniques? How can we choose subsets of UML and use them successfully? What should rationally be expected from UML and what is it useful for? What is the impact of UML on industrial projects and academic programs?

Organizers:

Luis F. Andrade, OBLOG SA
Email: landrade@oblog.pt  

Ana Moreira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Akash R. Deshpande, University of California at Berkeley
Stuart Kent, University of Brighton

10

OO Business Rules and their Uses, including Agents and Workflow

 withdrawn

11

Evaluating Object-Oriented Design

 pan pacific hotel
pavilion c

This workshop will focus on design evaluation for educators involved in introducing object-oriented design at an early point in computer science education. This will continue the work begun at OOPSLA `96 with our workshop on "Teaching and Learning Object Design in the First Year." We see an increased and early emphasis on design as an important step forward in OO education.

The original workshop resulted in agreement that object-oriented design should be emphasized to a greater extent in the early stages of computer science education. However, we also identified some key difficulties to making progress. We saw the need to foster creation and sharing of resources to support early OO design: we addressed this need in our OOPSLA `97 workshop, and created a web repository. Other difficulties we saw concerned evaluating design at an early stage and communicating to students what "good" design means: we plan to address these issues specifically at OOPSLA `98.

Design evaluation is an important subject both from the perspective of software engineering, and the perspective of pedagogy. Students must understand that any design has consequences, and they must themselves learn how to determine good and bad consequences that may flow from design decisions. Educators must lead students through this process, facilitate their learning, and also provide critical guidance. Moreover, evaluation also relates to practical issues of concern to many educators, including student assessment, team-building, and management of large groups.

Organizer:

Robert Biddle, Victoria University
Email: robert@mcs.vuw.ac.nz
http://www.bk.psu.edu/faculty/mercer/design/index.html  

Rick Mercer, Penn State Berks
Eugene Wallingford, University of Northern Iowa

 

12

Pragmatic Issues in Using Frameworks Implications for Framework Design

 pan pacific hotel
governor general a

Frameworks have been put forward as key components for achieving reuse of analysis, design, and implementation of object-oriented technology. While a good framework can meet these goals, the use of frameworks provides new and different challenges to the applications designer/developer.

The purpose of this workshop is to explore how the applications design process is changed by the introduction of frameworks, and to learn what this means for effective framework design. It will be a forum for framework designers and users to identify issues, discuss ideas, and propose guidelines for effective framework design.

Questions for discussion will include, but not be limited to, the following:

Before the workshop, position papers will be made available for review. The workshop will begin with a group introduction, to discuss participants' interests and expectations. A set of focussed discussion groups will be identified based upon the group's common interests. These small groups will brainstorm on their chosen topic areas. In the afternoon, the session will reconvene, and the small groups will present their findings. The day will end with an open discussion aimed at gathering common guidelines for framework design.

Organizers:

David Laurance, Lucent Technologies
Email: dlaurance@lucent.com  

Dave Williamson, ObjecTime Limited 

 

13

Reflective Programming in C++ and Java

 convention centre
room 9

Reflective programming is a new object-oriented programming paradigm which is today of high interest in many application fields and research areas. This approach provides a new type of indirection to optimize and add properties to application programs or to improve their flexibility. Although reflective features exist in some programming languages, many reflective versions of standard languages have emerged (Open C++, Reflective Java, etc.) and are used for the development of applications and systems. This workshop aims bring together developers of practical systems using reflective programming in various domains, to share experience and requirements. What metainformation is really useful in practice and what the real difference is with respect to conventional object-oriented programming should be clarified.

The workshop topics include: practical experience with reflective programming in, but not limited to, C++ and Java, open compilers, reflective system architecture, reflective implementation of non-functional requirements (including real-time, dependability and security issues), reflection and industrial applications, metaobject protocols, runtime and compile time reflection, validation of reflective systems, testing of reflective programs.

Position papers should clearly state how they relate to the workshop theme, what particular problems they address, what practical experience was conducted, and why it is relevant to this workshop.

To enable lively and productive discussions, attendance will be limited to 25-30 people. All submissions will be formally reviewed and abstracts selected for presentation according to their relevance to the workshop.

We are studying the possibility of requesting full papers based on selected workshop contributions for a special issue of a journal.

Organizers:

Dr. Jean-Charles Fabre, Laboratoire d'Analyse et d'Architecture des Systèmes, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Email : Jean-Charles.Fabre@laas.fr  

Prof. Shigeru Chiba, Institute of Information Science and Electronics, University of Tsukuba, Japan

14

Formal Underpinnings of the Java Paradigm

 pan pacific hotel
governor general d

Java offers a novel paradigm for program deployment. It supports intermediate code that is dynamically loaded from remote sites - sometimes without the user's knowledge. For Web pages, Java applets can greatly improve interactivity; for Java developers, the Java paradigm promises benefits in portability and manageability. However, the Java paradigm also opens new possibilities for abuse and has caused concern about security.

The application of formal methods to the Java paradigm aims to provide a better understanding of the approach by rigorously formulating and trying to prove the soundness of binary compatibility, type safety, security and other guarantees made by Java. It also aims to provide some guidance for further development of the paradigm by uncovering possible design flaws and by supplying a platform for the description of future extensions.

This workshop aims to bring together people working in these areas.

Organizer:

Susan Eisenbach, Imperial College
Email: se@doc.ic.ac.uk  

Jim Alves-Foss, University of Idaho
Drew Dean, Princeton University
Sophia Drossopoulou, Imperial College
Tobias Nipkow, Institut fuer Informatik, Technische Universitaet Muenchen
Raymie Stata, Digital Equipment Corporation

15

Meta-data and Active Object Model Pattern Mining Workshop

 convention centre
room 17

The volatile nature of contemporary business requirements forces developers to make their applications more configurable, flexible, and adaptable. The era where business rules are buried in Cobol code is coming to an end. Today, users themselves may seek to dynamically change their business rules. Multi-tiered systems often demand that data that the data that move through them carry with them their own descriptions. There have been a number of successful frameworks and applications implemented and delivered in different areas of industry that use domain specific languages, meta-data, good object-oriented design, and flexible implementation of business rules to address these sorts of needs.

A system with an "Active Object Model" has an explicit object model that it interprets at run-time. If you change the object model, the system changes its behavior. Business rules can be stored in an active object model that makes it easy to evolve the way a company does their business.

Researchers working with reflection and meta-level architectures have been looking at how to make such systems highly configurable. Our goal is to document the techniques and principles that make these systems work. We hope to "mine" these systems and produce a preliminary collection of meta-data and active object system patterns, and help establish a shared vocabulary.

Organizer:

Joseph W. Yoder, University of Illinois at Urbanna-Champaign
Email: j-yoder@uiuc.edu  

Michel Tilman, UniSys
Dirk Riehle, UBILAB Union Bank of Switzerland
Martin Fowler, Independent Consultant
Brian Foote, University of Illinois at Urbanna-Champaign
Martine Devos, Argo

workshops

monday

16

Agents of Change
withdrawn

 

17

Partitioning and Simulation of UML Models
Workshop 17 has been withdrawn by the organizer.  Attendees interested in this topic should consider Workshop 4. 

 

18

Object Technology, Architecture, and Domain Analysis - Experiences in Making the Connection

 waterfront centre hotel
sechelt room

This workshop will explore the results seen by developers in applying object technology to support systematic reuse, especially in the areas of architecture and domain analysis. Current object technology encompasses a diversity of approaches including use cases, aspect-oriented programming, and the Unified Modeling Language. We want to understand how these object technologies are affecting other aspects of software development that contribute to systematic reuse.

Several recent contributions to the literature have described experiences in applying object technology to support systematic reuse. Most prominent of these is the Jacobson-Griss-Jonsson book: "Software Reuse." The International Conference on Software Reuse will also feature several papers on the topic, with several specifically addressing domain analysis or architecture. Papers at previous OOPSLA conferences have also addressed the topic. This workshop will explore the impact of making the connections of object technology to systematic reuse in the following areas:

Organizers:

Sholom Cohen, Software Engineering Institute
Email: sgc@sei.cmu.edu  

Jorge L. Dmaz-Herrera, Southern Polytechnic State University
William Tepfenhart, AT&T Laboratories

19

Implementation and Application of Object Oriented Workflow Management Systems

 pan pacific hotel
governor general b

Object-oriented technology is driving changes in development methods, databases, operating systems, integration standards, and application capabilities. At the same time, other aspects of computing technology are evolving to create new application opportunities and expose new challenges.

With Web/Internet/Intranet accessibility, emerging industry standards, and increased demand for inter-enterprise integration, current workflow management systems must undergo major changes to respond to a changing market and gain competitive advantage. Using object-oriented technology is a viable way to address these demands and certainly will affect the extent to which new opportunities are realized.

Below are a number of specific areas that could benefit from applying object-oriented technology to workflow management:

The primary expectation of this workshop is to identify critical issues related to workflow management and areas within workflow management that can benefit most from object-oriented technology. Other goals are to share ideas and experiences, reach consensus on approaches for resolving issues and strategies, and establish a communication mechanism.

Organizers:

Mamdouh Ibrahim, Electronic Data Systems
Email: mamdouh.ibrahim@eds.com  

Christoph Bussler, Boeing Research & Technology
Fred Cummins, EDS/Leading Technologies & Methods
Steve Marney, EDS Intelligent & Object Systems
Dr. Santanu Paul, IBM Center for Software Engineering
Wolfgang Schulze, Dresden University of Technology

20

Thinking with Prototypes

 convention centre
burrard ii

Prototype-based programming is an alternative to the traditional class-based object-oriented model. In this model there are no classes, rather, new kinds of objects are formed more directly by composing concrete, fully-fledged objects, which are often referred to as prototypes. When compared to class-based languages, prototype-based languages are conceptually simpler, and have many other characteristics that make them appealing, especially for the development of evolving, exploratory, and distributed software systems. Yet prototypes are still relatively unknown outside the research world, and the number of industrial applications relying on prototypes is minimal compared to the number of applications relying on more mainstream object technology.

In this workshop we will examine the state-of-the-art in prototype-based object-oriented programming, focusing especially on the design side of prototypes, or more generally, how to think in a prototype-based fashion. This side of prototypes has until recently been mostly ignored in the literature. More specifically, the workshop will address the following issues:

Potential workshop participants will be invited to submit short papers describing their perspective on prototypes, and these will be reviewed by the organisers. To ensure creativity, the morning of the workshop will be occupied by short presentations to the whole workshop from selected participants, followed in the afternoon by demonstrations of selected participants work, and then general discussions. If necessary, attendance to the workshop will be limited to enable fruitful discussion.

Organizers:

Antero Taivalsaari, Sun Microsystems Laboratories
Email: antero.taivalsaari@eng.sun.com  

James Noble, Microsoft Research Institute

21

Habitability in a Virtual World: What Constitutes "Living" Software?

 convention centre
room 20

A "living" building adapts throughout its life, responding to the needs of the people who inhabit the building and the space around it. What does it mean for a software system to be living in this way? How does the task of designing and building software contribute to or detract from this "living" quality?

This workshop will explore these questions from several different perspectives:

Organizer:

Nancy Lewis, ObjecTime Limited 
Email: nlewis@objectime.com  

David Laurance, Lucent Technologies

22

Non-Software Examples of Patterns of Software Architecture

 convention centre
room 17

After the workshop and poster session at OOPSLA `97 on Non-Software Examples of Design Patterns, the organizers have received several requests to develop non-software examples for other systems of patterns. For this year's workshop, the focus will be on the patterns found in Patterns of Software Architecture (PoSA). Some of the authors of Pattern Oriented Software Architecture - A System of Patterns will be present to help develop examples of their patterns. The outcome of this workshop will be non-software examples which will help communicate the intent, participants and consequences of the PoSA patterns.

Good examples can be a valuable training aid when introducing others to patterns, especially. when participants in an example correspond to participants in the pattern, and the consequences are similar for the example and pattern.

Organizer:

Michael Duell, AG Communications Systems
Email: duellm@agcs.com  

Linda Rising, AG Communications Systems
Frank Buschmann, Siemens AG
Hans Rohnert, Siemens AG
Michael Stal, Siemens AG

23

Pattern Writers' Workshop

 convention centre
room 12

Further to Sunday's Tutorial 5, this workshop allows participants to apply the skills learned in the tutorial. The workshop will be a highly interactive setting with collaborative writing and personal consulting from the instructors. Each work will be reviewed in a writers' workshop format. Above and beyond the tutorial objective, the workshop objectives are to help people learn:

Organizer:

Jim Coplien, Bell Laboratories
Email: cope@bell-labs.com  

Frank Buschmann, Siemens AG
Richard Gabriel, DreamSongs RPG Consultancy
Christa Schwanninger, Siemens AG

24

Workshop on Use Case Patterns

 convention centre
room 14

Use cases are a popular method of requirements modeling. They provide a mechanism for determining system boundaries, as well as a user-oriented requirements model. Creating meaningful use cases is difficult. Practitioners have reported problems in several areas of use case development, notably: how to begin, how to decide how much detail belongs in a use case, and how to organize use cases.

Several processes and templates exist for developing and documenting use cases. While these solutions are helpful and document valuable experience, they may still be insufficient because each development organization is different. Each targets a different industry and product suite, each uses different processes, and each has its own culture.

Patterns provide a mechanism for capturing people's experiences and documenting their solutions in a manner that is adaptable to different situations. Thus they provide one solution to the problem of describing generic methods for capturing use cases.

The goal of this workshop is to discuss and refine patterns from which we can define a Pattern Language for the development and documentation of use cases.

Organizers:

Paul Bramble, AG Communication Systems
Email: bramblep@agcs.com  

Greg Gibson, AG Communication Systems
Alistair Cockburn, Humans and Technology

25

Model Engineering, Methods and Tools Integration with CDIF

 convention centre
room 9

The issue of interoperability between different object (or non-object) models used in the software development cycle is becoming critical. In order to cope with the increasing number and variety of involved models (analysis, design, business, requirement,?), we need some kind of unifying framework and CDIF is probably one of the most promising among the currently available solutions. Bridges have been designed to facilitate the correspondence between CDIF and many other formalisms like UML, STEP/EXPRESS, etc. We intend to provide a forum for exchange of ideas and experience in the domains of model construction, model transformation, model integration, model verification and other forms of model engineering.

Focus will be put on the mechanics of interoperability between object models (for example analysis, design and programming models). Any proposal related to CDIF or similar model engineering formalisms are welcome. The following non exhaustive list is representative of the topics that will be discussed at the workshop:

Organizers:

Jean Bézivin, Laboratoire de Recherche en Sciences de Gestion, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, Université de Nantes
Email: Jean.Bezivin@Sciences.Univ-Nantes.fr  

Johannes Ernst, Aviatis Corp.
Woody Pidcock, Boeing Company

26

OO Process and Metrics for Effort Estimation

 convention centre
room 7

This workshop is a continuation of similar, very successful workshops held at OOPSLA `95, OOPSLA `96 and OOPSLA `97 with the same theme.

Software development remains difficult to plan. Object-orientation has thus far not changed the picture. However due to the greater continuity in OO across the life-cycle - objects everywhere - there is good hope that OO may improve the predictability of OO projects. At least two ingredients are required for planning SW projects:

  1. More detailed processes than what is currently available (waterfall, spiral, fountain, clean-room, etc.). This would help to identify more intermediate milestones.
  2. Effort tracking and estimation metrics. This would help to measure progress and to recognize earlier that unexpected roadblocks have been encountered.

Problem Areas:

Organizers:

Granville Miller, Make Systems
Email: gmiller@makesys.com  

Chris Ball, American Management Systems
Dennis de Champeaux, OntoOO, Inc.
Philip Haynes, Object Oriented Pty Ltd.
Brian Henderson-Sellers, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

27

Software Development as a Studio Discipline

 pan pacific hotel
governor general c

Think about the building or rebuilding the Statue of Liberty, or producing a music record, creating a major motion film. Here there is a careful blend of artistry and discipline. It includes the business of art, team building, mutual respect, managing your ego, putting your work on for exhibition, blending with other artists and other media, industry standards, tool/instrument mastery/maintenance, and so much more. It includes mastery and roles - apprentice, journeyman, and master are found in some but not all fields - why?. A more appropriate question for OOPSLA participants is "Why isn't software development thought of in the same way by the traditional teachers of our discipline?"

Many have questioned whether software development has suffered at the hands of mathematically-minded professors in the university setting who fail to address the larger picture and have therefore produced less than well-rounded individuals (geeks?) whose contribution to the reality of real-world software-related projects is often suspect. Especially with the mainstreaming of object-oriented technology, many of the techniques used and taught in the universities are extremely different than those used by successful developers and mentors in non-academic circles. Unfortunately, the typical business model for training developers further is also found lacking as it tends to be focused on the use of particular tools (which has some merits) while continuing to miss the big picture.

This workshop will bring together practitioners who have challenged the status quo while training/educating/mentoring individuals in software development. They may have drawn directly from experience in traditional studio disciplines (architecture, fine art, folk art, record producing, film-making, furniture making, etc.) or other learning environments which have similar characteristics, but maybe just by reflecting on life experiences or particular world views. We will not be building a curriculum, but rather discussing the way studio work gets done and studio workers are trained and what might be applied to the software profession as we draw from our collective experiences.

Organizer:

Ken Auer, RoleModel Software, Inc.
Email: kauer@rolemodelsoft.com  

Bruce Anderson, IBM Object Technology
Norm Kerth, Elite Systems, Inc.
Dave M. West, University of St. Thomas

28

Modeling Dynamic/Emergent Distributed Object Systems

 pan pacific hotel
governor general d

Modeling dynamic and emergent distributed systems is beyond the capability of today's modeling methodologies and tools. Analyzing, designing, developing, and managing dynamic/emergent distributed object systems; systems in which new components and objects are added, removed, and change throughout the lifetime of the system, is becoming an increasingly important and difficult task. There has been an explosion of use and research in distributed object and agent systems. Additionally, we are witnessing the convergence of the distributed object and web technologies. Thus, ubiquitous dynamic distributed computation is just around the corner, but current methodologies are inadequate in their ability to describe the complex systems and interactions exhibited in today's more complex systems.

The goal of this workshop is to assess the usability and completeness of current leading-edge methodologies for dynamic/emergent distributed systems, and to raise issues and discuss requirements for the further evolution of current, as well as future, object methodologies.

Organizer:

Joseph Kiniry, California Institute of Technology
Email: kiniry@cs.caltech.edu  

Arne Berre, SINTEF Telecom and Informatics
K. Mani Chandy, California Institute of Technology
Doug Lea, State University of New York at Oswego
Paddy Nixon, Trinity College
Dirk Riehle, Union Bank of Switzerland
Ed Swanstrom, Agilis Corporation/Platinum Corporation
Antonio Rito Silva, Technical University of Lisbon

29

Objects, Components, and the Virtual Enterprise

 pan pacific hotel
pavilion c

We are currently witnessing a convergence of several threads of technology and business imperatives. The idea of a virtual enterprise - a business built from both organisationally and geographically distributed units - is becoming an area of increasing interest to both computer scientists and business people.

Virtual enterprises are becoming feasible on account of a number of technology phenomena including CORBA, the World Wide Web, Java and component-based software; they are becoming attractive because of business trends such as downsizing and outsourcing. Set against these positive factors are a number of disincentives, including exposing key business processes to the hostile Internet, the extra complexities of cross-border contracts, and the fluidity of the software marketplace.

From a business perspective building a virtual enterprise involves contracts, cross-organisational management and statutory obligations. From a technical perspective, it involves confronting problems such as heterogeneity, distribution, authentication, privacy, and auditing. While each of these technologies is being applied piecemeal to address one more of the business imperatives - resulting in "creeping" virtual enterprises - an overall technical vision for their seamless integration remains elusive. It is now time to ask the questions: is object technology the right way to implement a virtual enterprise? If so, what technologies are appropriate? How should they be composed? And how should they be driven by the underlying business process? Given that the ingredients exist, what is the recipe? And what is the final dish?

The aim of the workshop is to bring together a complementary group of workers in the following fields:

Organizer:

Paddy Nixon, Trinity College, Department of Computer Science
Email: Paddy.Nixon@cs.tcd.ie  

Vincent Wade, Trinity College, Dublin
Simon Dobson, Trinity College, Dublin
Oliver Sims, SSA Object Technology
David Zenie, NIIIP
Ian Gorton, Transarc Corp
Spyros Lalis, ICS-FORTH

30

Web Enactment of Object-Oriented Software Design

 pan pacific hotel
pavilion b

Software design organizations now use the web to enact objected-oriented software design. The activities in an OO software design cycle (such as use case identification, scenario construction, UI prototyping, analysis modeling, detailed design, and iteration planning) are participatory and iterative in nature. Participation by stakeholders (developers, managers, and customers) is essential for success. Reasoned application of the web enhances both the effectiveness of design communications and the execution of OO design activities.

The purpose of this workshop is to understand:

The result of the workshop will be a greater understanding of the commonalities and differences in the way that various organizations use the web for effective OO design. Participants should leave with new ideas for improving the way they use the web to enact OO design.

The output of the workshop will be partly determined by the participants during the workshop, but will at least include a collection of position papers by the participants. The participants may also decide to publish such items as a summary of the discussions held during the workshop, a set of questions whose answers would lead to progress, and a set of recommendations based on collective experience.

Organizer:

Steven Fraser, Northern Telecom
Email: sdfraser@nortel.ca  

Priya Marsonia, Northern Telecom
Bill Opdyke, Lucent Technologies

31

Behavioral Semantics of OO Business and System Specifications

 convention centre
room 16

Business and system specifications are technical documents used to describe and understand businesses and specifically business rules and the computer systems that have to support (some of) these rules. Specifications have to express this understanding in a clear, precise, and explicit way, in order to act as common ground between business domain experts, analysts and software developers. They also provide the basis for reuse of concepts and constructs ("patterns") common to all, or a large number of, businesses, and in doing so save intellectual effort, time and money. They introduce precision much earlier than in coding, so that business people - and not the developers - define all business rules. Adequate specification approaches substantially ease the elicitation of business requirements during walkthroughs with business customers, and support clear separation of concerns known since Adam Smith as division of labor. Different audiences are interested in different aspects of "common business components", and correspondingly may want to buy or sell these components based on different criteria.

The aim of the workshop is to bring together theoreticians and practitioners to report their experience with making semantics precise (perhaps even formal), clear, concise and explicit in OO business specifications, business designs, and system specifications. Both academic (teaching!) and industrial "war stories" will be particularly appreciated. Experience in the usage of various (object-oriented) modeling approaches for these purposes would be of special interest, as would experience in explicit traceability of semantics between a business specification, business design, and a system specification.

Organizer:

Bernhard Rumpe, Institut fuer Informatik, Technische Universitaet Muenchen   
Email: rumpe@informatik.tu-muenchen.de  

Haim Kilov, Merrill Lynch
Ian Simmonds, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

 

workshops

tuesday

32

Object-Oriented Curricula: the Future of CS2

 convention centre
room 19

In this workshop, we will address how OO languages and design affect the second course in computer science and, more broadly, the first year of computer science. This workshop builds on a workshop held in 1997 and reported on in SIGCSE in 1998.

The second course in computer science, traditionally known as either CS2 or data structures is changing rapidly as a result of new paradigms, languages, and philosophy.  Traditionally, the course has been built around the study of data structures: their implementation, use, and analysis.   However, the availability of widely-available and robust class libraries (e.g. STL in C++, JFC in Java) could change one focus of the course to emphasize use more than implementation.

Should we teach our students how to understand and use class libraries, rather than implementing elementary data structures from scratch?   Should we encourage the development and use of more complex programming assignments in which we ask students to build or augment larger programs than were possible when all components were built from scratch?  Can we include object-oriented concepts only at the expense of de-emphasizing other topics (e.g. algorithm analysis)?

Workshop participants will produce a list of issues and develop a position statement to serve as the beginning of a blueprint for the future of teaching data structures and programming in the first year of computer science.

Organizer:

Owen Astrachan, Duke University
Email: ola@cs.duke.edu 

 

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Last updated 05 October 1998 16:06:32 / Teresa Warwaruk