NSF Career Award
One of our new faculty, Professor George Heineman, has been awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. The grant, for $105,000, is for "A Model for Designing Adaptable Software Components". Profs. Cruz and Rundensteiner have also received this honor in the past.
Abstract
This research focuses on novel techniques for designing software components that provide a mechanism for adapting their behavior. Traditional approaches to component reuse are limited in that a component must exactly meet the needs of an application builder before it can be reused. This research proposes a new direction by suggesting that component-based software development will only occur when application builders can adapt software components to suit their needs.
The first objective is to aid component designers in designing and implementing highly reusable components. The language-independent solution proposed by this research applies equally well to components written in C, C++, or Java. The second objective is to provide an architectural description language for specifying adaptations to individual components as needed for a target application. The third objective is to construct a design tool that helps users compose applications from adaptable components. A fourth objective is to define a reengineering methodology for retrofitting existing legacy code into adaptable components. A final objective is to train our students in designing highly reusable software components and building applications from software components. This research will greatly increase the ability to create large, complex systems from independently implemented software components.
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