Skip to main content

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] [List Home]
[aspectj-users] Announcing availability of Ptolemy compiler: a language that balances reasoning and expressiveness

Colleagues:

This is to announce the general availability of a javac-based compiler for
the Ptolemy programming language from: http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~ptolemy/

Ptolemy language has the following main design goals:

* Enable modularization of crosscutting concerns, while preserving
   encapsulation of existing object-oriented (OO) code,

* enable well-defined interfaces between OO code and crosscutting code, and

* enable separate type-checking, separate compilation, and modular reasoning
   of both OO and crosscutting code.

All of these goals are important for scalability of software development
processes but harder to achieve in current aspect-based languages.

Ptolemy language has the following properties:

- A simple and unified language model with fewer new language constructs,
  > no distinction between aspect & classes and advice & methods
 > provides a simple, flexible, and declarative event model
 > well-defined interface between OO code and crosscutting code

- solves some hard problems with current aspect-based languages,
 > no pointcut fragility, no quantification failure, uniform access to context
 > avoids obliviousness to make code evolution and maintenance easier

- provides modular and compile-time checking of important properties
 > crosscutting code must conform to requirements of the interface

We also make a compiler for Ptolemy available. This compiler is an extension
of the reference Java compiler (javac) and is a drop-in replacement for it.
A detailed language manual is also available for download. 

Next version of Ptolemy compiler is also under works and it will provide
implicit concurrency for programs that use Ptolemy constructs. 

Ptolemy is an open source project under the Mozilla Public License 1.1.
If you would like to contribute to the project, please do not hesitate in 
contacting me about it. 

Best wishes,
Hridesh

Hridesh Rajan |  Associate Professor of Computer Science
Iowa State University | 226 Atanasoff Hall |  Ames, IA
Voice: +1-515-294-6168 | Fax: +1-515-294-0258
My URL: http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~hridesh
My Research Group: http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~design


Back to the top