Building your own software development environment

Abstract

The full power of process programming can only be achieved by a system in which we can dynamically design and execute the software process model, as well as the environment which executes the software process model. We are developing a new process modelling strategy (meta-model) called the object process model and an object process modelling environment (meta-environment) OPM, which allows us to design and build both software process models and software development environments that execute the software process models. In the object process model, software process models are not static entities executed by the environment. An executing software process provides a working environment in which software designers can work in order to accomplish a wide variety of software development tasks. In OPM, software process models are described in an object-oriented process programming language called Galois and are executed by the Galois runtime system. OPM itself is written in Galois, and therefore it is considered as a software process running on top of the Galois runtime system. Galois is syntactically a superset of C++ but has four major innovations beyond conventional programming languages: meta-classes, derivation, typed functions and rule-based features. This paper presents the object process model and shows how software process models and software development environments can be designed in the process programming language Galois.