Rapid Software Prototyping Using Visual Language Techniques

1
Rapid Software Prototyping Using Visual Language
Techniques

• Kang ZHANG Guang Lei SONG Jun KONG
• Department of Computer Science
• University of Texas at Dallas
• Richardson, Texas 75083-0688, USA

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Outline

• Motivation and basic idea
• Design Criteria
• Meta-Tool Concept
• Specification and Verification Through Graph
  Grammars
• A Prototyping Example
• Conclusions and Future Work

3
Motivation and Basic Idea

• No commonly accepted executable specification
  language for computer-aided prototyping
• Few specification or prototyping languages/tools
  support non-disposable prototyping
• Being executable and graphical, visual languages
  and their automatic generation mechanisms
  suitable for rapid prototyping
• To have meta-tool capability to automatically
  generate visual executable prototyping languages
  (VEPLs)

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Design Criteria

• Automatic generation of VEPLs upon specs
• Support for syntactic and semantic specifications
  
• Customizable and support for incremental
  prototyping

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The Meta-Tool Concept
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The Meta-Tool Concept
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Specification and Verification - Reserved Graph
Grammars

• The Reserved Graph Grammar (RGG) formalism
  defines context-sensitive graph grammars for
  diagrammatic visual languages.
• It is expressive in defining various types of
  graph formalisms and efficient in parsing most
  types of graphs Zhang and Zhang 1997, 2001.

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Reserved Graph Grammar Node Structure
super-vertex
M
aNode
B
I
T
vertex
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Reserved Graph Grammar - Productions
DTGS
VDB
TollGate

A
T1
V
S
C
L
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Reserved Graph Grammar Syntax-Directed
Computations

• Attributes and action code associated with each
  production.
• E.g. to retrieve payment information for a
  vehicle and update the vehicles information in
  database system
• Action(AAMGraph g)
• If (Car.Authorized true)
• TollGate.ConnectDataBase()
• DataBase.UpdateInfo(Car)

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A Prototyping Example

• System Requirements
• Identification of System Modules
• Rule Specification
• Prototyping Using the Generated VEPL

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A Prototyping Example- System Requirements

• In a road traffic pricing system, drivers of
  authorized vehicles are charged at tollgates
  automatically. The tolls are placed at special
  lanes called green lanes. A driver has to install
  a device (called an EzPay) inside his/her
  vehicles windshield in order to pass a green
  lane.
• Each tollgate has a sensor that reads EzPay.
  When an authorized vehicle passes through a green
  lane, the green light is turned on, and the
  amount being debited is displayed. If an
  unauthorized vehicle passes through a green lane,
  a yellow light is turned on and a camera takes a
  photo of the vehicles license plate.

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A Prototyping Example- Identification of System
Modules
Visual Object Tool (VOG)
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A Prototyping Example- Rule Specification
Formal Method Tool (RuleGenerator)
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A Prototyping Example- Rule Specification
Formal Method Tool (RuleGenerator)
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A Prototyping Example- Production set
lt1gt
Action(AAMGraph g) If (Car.Authorized
true) TollGate.ConnectDataBase(
) DataBase.UpdateInfo(Car)

DTGS
TollGate
A

V
S
C
L
lt2gt

lt3gt
Action(AAMGraph g) Car
Sensor.DetectEZPAY()
Sensor
EZCard
T3
E
S2

Action(AAMGraph g) If (Car.Authorized
true) Light.Set(Green)
TollGate.Display() else
Light.Set(Yellow)
lt4gt

Camera
T5
Light
T4
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A Prototyping Example- Prototyping Using the
Generated VEPL
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Conclusion and Future Work

• Summarized advantages
• Auto-generation mechanism
• Non-disposable prototyping
• Natural support for verification
• Programmers knowing no formal methods able to use
  VEPLs for prototyping

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Conclusion and Future Work

• A main challenge necessity of graph grammar
  expertise for writing VEPL grammars
• Aim at a semi-automatic tool for generating
  production rules according to sample VEPL
  prototypes and user-provided hints
• Conduct empirical studies to compare our visual
  approach with traditional approaches

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Thank you