Tenth OOPSLA Workshop on Behavioral Semantics: Back to Basics

Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on Behavioral Semantics

Abstract

The purpose of this workshop is improve the understanding and use of precise semantics in OO specifications and designs. The goal is to be a focal point that brings together theoreticians and practitioners to report their experience with making semantics precise, clear, concise and explicit in OO business specifications, business designs, and system specifications. Papers can range from academic research to industrial ``war stories.'' This is the tenth anniversary of this OOPSLA workshop series. The specific emphasis this year is to return to the ``basics'' to recapture insights and ideas that might otherwise slip into oblivion, while also looking forward to the future of the field.

Agenda

  1. Classical work and recent progress on the precise semantics of OO modeling.
  2. Progress in academic research and ``technology transfer'' of this research.
  3. Industrial experience with precise specifications.
  4. Tool support for precise semantics.

Proceedings

The Proceedings will be available at the Workshop.
The Table of Contents is now available.

Workshop Organizers

Behavioral Specifications of Businesses and Systems

Themes and Goals

The continuing theme of the Workshop Series on Behavioral Semantics is to foster precise and explicit specifications of business and system semantics. The need to understand and specify semantics in this way, independently of any (possible) realization, has been recognized for a while. Some progress has been made in these areas, both in academia and in industry. However, in too many cases only lip service to these ideas has been provided, and as a result the systems we build or buy are all too often not what they are supposed to be.

We used to live with that, and quite often users relied on human intermediaries to ``sort the things out.'' However, with the rapid development of e-commerce and agent-based systems, there is no human intermediary; if the system is not what it is supposed to be then its user will quickly go to a competitor.

This series has successfully brought together practitioners and theoreticians who have been working to make this vision a reality. This year, the series will be celebrating its tenth anniversary by revisiting the classics of the past while also looking to the future of the field. We refer to this as ``Back to Basics.''

One of the unfortunate characteristics of Computer Science and Software Engineering is a noteworthy lack of interest in work done in the past. It is taken for granted that a two-year old book could not possibly still be relevant. Yet there are books such as the Garmisch 1968 Conference on Software Engineering show that many of the concepts considered now to be a recent invention, have existed for a long time. This includes such concepts as pair programming, component factories, the gross inadequacies of box-and-line diagrams, the confusion generated by a set of tacit assumptions, among many others. Systematic usage of the basic ideas from this book, as well as many other classics, would prevent the enormous waste of effort resulting from reinventing these ideas.

Business Specifications As in all the workshops in this series, it is our goal to be a focal point of bringing together theoreticians and practitioners to report their experience with making semantics precise, clear, concise and explicit in (OO) business specifications, business designs, and system specifications. We invite papers varying from academic research (especially dealing with transferring theory into practice) to industrial ``war stories.'' This year there is an emphasis on revisiting the classics both to ``set the record straight'' and to recapture insights and ideas that might otherwise slip into oblivion.

References

(Books [2] and [3] were based on the previous OOPSLA and ECOOP workshops on specification semantics.)

  1. Open Distributed Processing - Reference Model: Part 2: Foundations (IS 10746-2 / ITU-T Recommendation X.902, 1995).
  2. H.Kilov and W.Harvey (Eds.). Object-oriented behavioral specifications. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996.
  3. H.Kilov, B.Rumpe, I.Simmonds (Eds.). Behavioral specifications of businesses and systems. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999.
  4. K.Baclawski, H.Kilov, A.Thalassinidis, K.Tyson (Eds.). Proceedings of the Eighth OOPSLA Workshop on behavioral semantics (Denver, 1999). Northeastern University, 1999.
  5. H.Kilov. Business specifications. Prentice-Hall, 1999.
  6. K.Baclawski, H.Kilov (Eds.). Proceedings of the Ninth OOPSLA Workshop on behavioral semantics (Minneapolis, 2000). Northeastern University, 2000.

Selection Process

the invitation to submit will be posted in various newsgroups and mailing lists. Invitations will also be emailed to past participants in this workshop series. Submitted papers (5-10 pages) will be reviewed by the organizers. The accepted papers, after rework by the authors, will be published, again as usual, in the Workshop Proceedings. These Proceedings will be distributed before the workshop.

Please send submissions to Haim Kilov <haimk@acm.org>

A/V Support

Ordinary (transparency) projector, 2 flipcharts.

Related Web Pages

OOPSLA2001 Web Site


Object-Oriented Behavioral Specifications
Northeastern University College of Computer Science
Versatile Information Systems OOPSLA 2000