Position papers to be presented during the Workshop.
Modern object-oriented (OO) systems are getting more complex and have to cope with increasing number of exceptional situations. The most general way of dealing with these problems is by employing exception handling mechanisms. In the past many such mechanisms have been proposed. In spite of all these there are many problems in applying these mechanisms because the mechanisms themselves and methodologies of using it are often error-prone. Moreover, specification, analysis, verification, testing, etc. of OO systems with exceptions are complicated.
The workshop aims at discussing important topics of developing and using exception handling techniques in OO systems and languages. The workshop will particularly focus on formalisation, distributed and concurrent systems, mobile object systems, new application areas, new OO paradigms, design patterns and frameworks, practical languages, and open architectures.
There are two trends in modern object-oriented systems: they are getting more complex and they have to cope with increasing number of exceptional situations. The most general way of dealing with these problems is by employing exception handling techniques. Many object-oriented mechanisms for handling exceptions have been proposed but there are still serious problems in applying them in practice caused by complexity of exception code design and analysis, by lack of methodologies supporting proper use of exception handling and by not addressing exception handling at proper phases of object-oriented system development.
The workshop aims at discussing important topics of using exception handling and at providing information exchange in this area. The goal is to achieve better understanding of how exceptions should be handled in object oriented systems, including all aspects of software design and use: novel linguistic mechanisms, good practice, advanced formal methods, etc.
We invite participants interested in discussing their research on exception handling in areas related to object oriented systems, in particular: formalisation, distributed and concurrent systems, practical experience, new application areas (e.g., web), mobile object systems, new object-oriented paradigms (e.g., object-oriented workflows, transactions), design patterns and frameworks, practical languages (Java, Ada 95, Smalltalk, Beta), open architectures, fault tolerance.
We invite position papers aiming at understanding why exception handling mechanisms proposed and available in earlier object-oriented languages (discussed, for example, at ECOOP'91 Workshop on "Exception Handling and Object-Oriented Programming") are not widely used now.
We are interested in papers reporting practical experiences relating both benefits and obstacles in using exception handling, experience in using advanced exception handling models and the best practice in using exception handling for developing modern applications in existing practical settings.
We intend to discuss problems of "complexity" of using and understanding exception handling: why programmers and practitioners often believe that it complicates the system design and analysis. What should be done to improve the situation? Why exception handling is the last mechanism to learn and to use? What is wrong with the current practice and education?
The plan is to have about 20 participants, each of which will present his/her position, discuss its relevance to the workshop and possible connections to work of other attendees. All accepted position papers will be shepherded by a member of the organising committee to help in relating it to other work to be presented at the workshop. To allow this each participant will receive abstracts of all accepted position papers in advance. Each attendee will receive a questionnaire before the workshop to help in organising discussion sessions. We plan to have two discussion sessions managed by the organisers to address main topics of the workshop, summarise findings, help in establishing cooperation.
Prospective attendees are invited to submit 3-5 page position papers, electronically in PDF or Postscript format, to Alexander Romanovsky at alexander.romanovsky@ncl.ac.uk by April, 7. The authors of the accepted papers will be notified by April 14 to allow an earlier registration to ECOOP.
Alexander Romanovsky
Department of Computing Science
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
UK
Email: alexander.romanovsky@ncl.ac.uk
Homepage
Christophe Dony
Universite Montpellier-II
LIRMM Laboratory
161 rue Ada
34392 Montpellier Cedex 5
France
Email: dony@lirmm.fr
Homepage
Jorgen Lindskov Knudsen
Department of Computer Science
University of Aarhus
Aabogade 34
DK-8200 Aarhus N
Denmark
Email: jlk@daimi.au.dk
Homepage
Anand Tripathi
Department of Computer Science
EECS Building 4-192
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis MN 55455
USA
Email: tripathi@cs.umn.edu
Homepage