A software interconnection technology to support specification of computational environments (polylith, module interconnection language)
James M. Purtilo · 1986
This thesis addresses the high cost of developing large software systems. We attribute much of this cost to widely used notations for describing interconnection (the current notations either obscure interconnection structure and properties, or lead to unnecessary complexity), and to implemented codes' inability to accommodate heterogeneity in languages or hosts. Our approach to reducing this cost, as well as to providing improved functionality in software products, is to develop a model for software interconnection, and then derive all integration and interconnection support services based on this single, unifying model. Two new concepts are essential to this approach, minimum specification (a notation for describing a large software system in terms of limited modular information) and the software bus (a resource that can directly execute a minimum specification). This model is described, as is an implemented prototype called POLYLITH that illustrates our approach. Example applications are presented, and issues that arise through use of our approach are discussed.