m i n d c o d e

A paper I submitted this year to PLoP, “Patterns for Data and Metadata Evolution in Adaptive Object Models”, co-authored with Filipe Correia and Leon Welicki, has been accepted for publication. I’ll be attending both PLoP and OOPSLA this year in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Meet you guys there

Ontem no publico: Famílias gastam 80 milhões de euros em manuais “obrigatórios” no regresso às aulas.

Mas alguém me consegue explicar porque é que ainda não se fez um Wiki para manuais “obrigatórios”? Eu ofereco-me para escrever material para informática. Serei o único ou simplesmente não há interesse por parte do governo português? Até arranjo servidor gratuito se for esse o problema…

My trip to the fields resulted in some nice photos, and a new desktop background that I hereby release to the community.

I guess I sold my soul to Apple…

I’ve presented my PhD pre-thesis on the past 2 of July, and I’m glad it has been accepted by the Jury: “Adaptive Object-Modeling: Patterns, Tools and Applications”. I was also honored to have Joseph Yoder, from Refactory Inc., as my external supervisor. His contribution and ideas will be, undoubtedly, extremely useful during my doctoral research. I’m now officially a PhD. ABD (All But Dissertation).

For those who are wondering, the Adaptive Object-Model (AOM) is a software architectural style which allows for runtime adaptivity of the domain model. It succinctly consists on using an object-based metamodel as a first-class artifact from where all concerns are inferred, or derived from; classes, attributes, relations and behavior are represented and stored as data. At runtime this information is interpreted, instructing the system which behavior to take. Changing the model data immediately results on the system following a different business domain model.

The fact is, while an AOM defines a software architecture and design, any particular implementation of an AOM results in a Domain Specific Language (DSL). There are no standard DSLs for AOMs, and probably there will never be; the strength of AOMs rely in the fact that they are built bottom-up, instead of the top-down approaches other MDSE (Model Driven Software Engineering) methodologies and tools are based upon.

Actually, my thesis will be exactly about that: the study and documentation of a set of patterns, recipes and tools, together forming the basis which any developer can pick and use in its system. The validation of the thesis will, in part, be evaluated by the construction of a prototype framework that lies upon the theoretical models inferred (which, incidentally, is progressing fast enough to already have some production-level commercial applications built on top of it!)

For those who are not following along, let me put things this way: imagine you pick up any semi-formal notation, like UML + OCL, and you feed it to a program. This program will adapt itself, from structure to interface, resulting in a new application ready to use, without any further programming from the developer. You feed it the model that represents an Archeological Heritage Information System, and done! But there’s more: while the system is running, you change the model: you create new objects, new business rules… All applications will react according to the new model, and will evolve automatically, while maintaining their integrity, without any kind of code-generation or shut-down.

Do this seem like a dream? Well, it isn’t. It’s reality, right here, right now. But, somehow these theories never became mainstream. I intend to change that… or at least, give a small contribution And this is my thesis on a nutshell (details are always boring).

While writing this post, I also received an email from a friend suggesting that I should read Martin Fowler’s latest blog posts. It’s interesting that DSLs and MDSE is gaining so much attention these days. Martin, we are all anxious to lay our hands in that new book of yours

So, I decided to buy a Macbook Pro and migrate once and for all to Mac OSX. I decided to go with the base specifications of 2.4Ghz Penryn w/ 2Gb RAM, 200GB Harddisk and a GeForce 8600M GT 256GDDR3. Nevertheless, I chose the Glossy screen and also bought the Apple Remote.

I intend to make an upgrade to 4Gb latter next month (Kingston 2Gb Memories are now priced at 42€), and get a 1/2Tb external harddrive for Time Machine.

28 Mar: Shipped From Originating Depot at Shanghai.