Method for Populating the Knowledge Base of AFIT's Domain-Oriented ApplicationComposition System

摘要

This research developed a formal method for adding new domains to Architect, adomain-oriented application composition system being developed at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) to explore new software engineering technologies. Using canonical formal specifications of domain objects, Architect rapidly composes these specifications into a software application and executes a prototype of that application as a means to demonstrate its correctness before any programming language specific code is generated. Architect is implemented in the Software Refinery environment, which allows Architect to create and manipulate object-oriented specifications. As a part of this research effort, domain-oriented application composition systems were investigated in general. leading to the development of a general method for populating the knowledge base of systems of this type. This general population method was then used as a basis for creating a specific knowledge base population method for Architect. To validate this method, Architect was populated with the Digital Signal Processing domain. The correct implementation of this domain was verified by creating applications and comparing their execution to expected results. The addition of the Digital Signal Processing domain to Architect also serves to validate the usefulness and correctness of the Architect system. Software engineering, Automatic programming, Knowledge based systems, Domain modeling, Domain-specific languages, Application composition systems.