Search

Building conceptual models for software design, in particular for high-tech applications such as smart home systems, is a complex task that significantly affects the efficiency of their development processes. One of the innovative methods of solving this problem is the use of domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs), which can reduce the time and other project resources required to create such systems. The subject of research in this paper is approaches to the development of DSML for Smart Home systems as a separate class of Internet of Things systems. The purpose of this work is to propose an approach to the development of DSMLs based on a model of variability of the properties of such a system. The following tasks are being solved: analysis of some existing approaches to the creation of DSMLs; construction of a multifaceted classification of requirements for them, application of these requirements to the design of the syntax of a specific DSML-V for the creation of variable software in smart home systems; development of a technological scheme and quantitative metrics for experimental evaluation of the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The following methods are used: variability modeling based on the property model, formal notations for describing the syntax of the DSML-V language, and the use of the open CASE tool metaDepth. Results: a multifaceted classification of requirements for a broad class of DSML languages is built; the basic syntactic constructions of the DSML-V language are developed to support the properties of software variability of "Smart Home" systems; a formal description of such syntax in the Backus-Naur notation is given; a technological scheme for compiling DSML-V specifications into the syntax of the language of the open CASE tool metaDepth is created; the effectiveness of the proposed approach using quantitative metrics is experimentally investigated. Conclusions: the proposed method of developing a specialized problem-oriented language for smart home systems allows for multilevel modeling of the variability properties of its software components and provides an increase in the efficiency of programming such models by about 14% compared to existing approaches.

Motivation: A large number of applications can be described as a set of processes that exchange messages. Traditionally the process-per-message model is used in the form of a specialized language or a run-time library for general purpose language. The first approach lacks implementation simplicity, while the second approach is difficult in use. We propose a new method that comprises domain-specific language called Templet for code markup, a general purpose language, and the preprocessor. Our approach is free from disadvantages mentioned above. Method: A code of a program is divided into blocks. Block boundaries are indicated by comments. The entire code structure is defined in Templet language so it can be checked out automatically before compilation. Description of Channels: A channel defines a message exchange protocol between two interconnected processes. We provide channel syntax in the form of Extended Backus-Naur Formalism (EBNF). The informational structure of the channel is described with Entity-Relation diagram (ER). Description of Processes: A process defines the algorithm for message processing. Information structure of the process is shown in conjunction with the syntax. EBNF and ER models are also used in the process specification. Syntax rules are illustrated with the fork-join code sample. Preprocessor structure and work scheme: We present the algorithm and the structure of the preprocessor. Subsystems discussed are: syntax analyzer; semantics analyzer; internal database; inference mechanism; and code generator. The method for estimation of workload of manual coding is presented. It shows the diminishment of workload in 20 times comparing with manual coding. Discussion: The preprocessor is used for skeleton programming as a part of web-service for automated parallel programming. Its advantages and features are discussed in comparison with parallelization with markup technique; general-purpose macro processor; parallel programming language, metaprogramming; and model-driven development. This paper is an extended version of a PIT 2014 paper [1].