school of information technology university of pretoria

School of Information TechnologyUniversity of Pretoria


The Polelo Group

Prof Judith Bishop

and students

August 2005


Our vision - Communication

Between computers and computers Between computers and people With each other and our colleagues With overseas and industrial collaborators


Success to date - Science Java web skeleton

– spin-off company and for the International AIDS Conference in 2002 (with TU-Berlin and E-Volution)

Views system– first Microsoft competitive RFP grant 2002– began research in GUIs, XML extension, reflection, and interoperability

RoSCtor – Software construction in Rotor, emphasising new programming

techniques such as aspect-oriented development (Microsoft) SLI@UP

– industry-related research in service-based architectures, and product line practice (Microsoft, Jay van Zyl – SystemLogic and Dirk Muthig, Fraunhofer Kaiserslautern)

Linca– Cryptographic skeleton for mobile phones


Success - Service

Java Gently and C# Concisely – support for readers worldwide: exercises, answers, quizzes and

websites, also new language investigation e.g. Spec# (Microsoft) Component Deployment 2002, 2004, 2005

– Initiated and assisted with these conferences Reviewing for 7 major conferences annually ACM Software System Award

– nominated James Gosling for Java– now chairman of the award (2005-2006)

Scholarships– DAAD - Judith Bishop to TU Berlin 2003– University - Kathrin Berg to F’H Kaiserslautern 2005– Scarce Skills - Basil Worrall 2004-2005– Humboldt - Kurt Geihs, from U Kassel 2006


Current collaborative projects Algon

– a framework for distributed algorithm interchange (Karen Renaud, Univ. Glasgow)

Views 2.0– an XML-based GUI engine for platform interoperability

(Nigel Horspool, Univ. Victoria and Microsoft Research) Cosmos

– the composition and monitoring of services in unstable and evolving contexts (Carlo Ghezzi, Politecnico di Milano)

Nomad – a distributed information sharing system for casually connected

communities (Microsoft, Albie von Gordon, E-Logics) Algon-P

– applying Algon framework to parallel algorithms (ELogics)


Framework for interchangeable distributed algorithms

Can also interchange middlewares e.gRMI to Corba

Includes a performance monitoring display Used for mutual exclusion, deadlock,

termination Now adapting it to parallel algorithms for

use in supply chain management

1. Karen Renaud, Judith Bishop, Johnny Lo, Basil Worrall, Algon: from interchangeable distributed algorithms to interchangeable middleware, Software Composition ’04, EENCS, Vol 127 (1) pp59-78, Barcelona, April 2004

2. Karen Renaud, Johnny Lo, Judith Bishop, Pieter van Zyl and Basil Worrall, Algon: A Framework for Supporting Comparison of Distributed Algorithm Performance. PDP’03 11th Euromicro Conf on Parallel Distributed and Network based Processing. ed. Andrea Clematis, pp 425-432, Genoa, Italy, Feb 2003

3. Bishop J, Renaud K and Worrall B, Composition of distributed software with Algon – prospects and possibilities, Software Composition ‘02, EENCS Vol 114 pp 65-85, Grenoble, April 2002

ALGON

Application

Middleware

Scheduler

Interface

Algorithm

Algon


S P R

TK OS’E

Views.Form f = new Views.Form(@"<Form> <vertical> <horizontal> <Button Name=Show/> <Button Name=Hide/> </horizontal> <PictureBox Name=pic Image=’pic.jpg' Height=175/> </vertical></Form>" );

while (true) { string c = f.GetControl(); PictureBox p = f["pic"]; switch (c) { case ”Show" : p.Show(); break; } case ”Hide" : p.Hide(); break; }}}

XML C#

1. Judith Bishop and Basil Worrall, Towards platform independence: retargeting GUI libraries on .NET, 3rd Conf .NET Technologies, Plzen May 2005.

2. Judith Bishop, R Nigel Horspool and Basil Worrall, Experience in integrating Java with C# and .NET, To appear, Concurrency: Computation and Experience, June 2005

3. Judith Bishop and Nigel Horspool, Developing Principles of GUI Programming Using Views, Proceedings of SIGCSE'04, ACM Press, pp. 373-377, Norfolk, VA, March 2004.

4. Judith Bishop and Nigel Horspool, C# Concisely, Addison-Wesley, pp442 ISBN 0-321-15418-5, 2004.

Views

XML-based vendor independent

GUI engine Retargetable from Windows to any

platform with minimum effort

Used in teaching, basis for language research, e.g. reflection

Predates Vista and Avalon (next Windows)


Funding - income

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

NRF 106 86 163 169 191

Courses 82 39

International Collabs 80 22 87 49 104

THRIP 105 141 759 698 570+

Confs 10 9 26 10 164

Papers 2 18 1 5

TOTAL 385 297 1053 927 1034

Funding Sources 2005

THRIP

NRF

Confs

International

Papers

Courses

5


Research outcomes 2001-2005

4 Accredited journal articles

13 International peer-reviewed conference papers

4 Books (including CD’02)

1 Book chapter

1 Conference Poster

11 Technical Reports (mainly in SE area)

4 Higher degrees (8 in progress)

4.5 per annum


Challenges for the future

Scientific– High performance computing growth in the Northern provinces– Aspect orientation into the main stream (and with HPC)– Completing the Nomad project– Programming with verification (Spec#)

Service– More IFIP involvement incl. Summer School 2006– Upcoming SAICSIT conference– Rotor Workshop at Microsoft Redmond in the same week!– First SA-Italian Workshop in Jan 2006– Hosting our Humboldt Scholar (Prof Geihs) 2006– First C# first year courses in 2006

Sustenance– New THRIP grants for 2006

school of information technology university of pretoria

Documents