ECOOP 2005 Workshop

Exception Handling in Object Oriented Systems: Developing Systems that Handle Exceptions

July 25, 2005

Glasgow, UK

Call for Papers

Modern systems are becoming more complex, and the number of exceptional situations they have to cope with is increasing. The most general way of dealing with these problems is employing exception handling techniques. While a number of object-oriented mechanisms for handling exceptions have been proposed, there are still serious problems with applying them in practice due to complexity of exception code design and analysis, to their improper use, to failure to employ exception handling at the appropriate development phases, to shortage of methodologies supporting correct use of exception handling as well as lack of mechanisms specific to various application domains and design paradigms.

Building on what was achieved in ECOOP'2000 and ECOOP'2003 workshops, this year’s forum will provide an opportunity to discuss research on exception handling and fault tolerance in all areas of object-based and component-based software development and use. It aims to cover the entire software life cycle as well as various types of applications, techniques and linguistic mechanisms. In particular, the following topics will be discussed:

• Modelling and applications with exceptions. How can such applications be checked, verified and proved? Which formal models are appropriate? We encourage submissions focusing on modelling system exceptional behaviour with UML-like languages and tools.
• Perceived complexity of using and understanding exception handling. Do programmers misuse exception handling? If so, why? Why do programmers and practitioners often believe that exception handling complicates system design and analysis? Why is exception handling the last mechanism for programmers to learn and to use?
• Novel exception handling and fault tolerance solutions for the new computing contexts: mobile and agent-based systems, pervasive and ambient environments, self-repairing, adaptive and open systems, distributed and asynchronous systems, transaction-based and multi-threaded programs.
• Software architectures which support exception handling and design patterns which help to develop systems that handle exceptions systematically.
• Programming constructs for exception handling. Are Java checked exceptions an appropriate solution for module specification? What are the post-Java constructs for exception handling? Which forgotten or unused past solutions should be brought back? Are they suitable for Java or C# like statically typed languages?
• Experience reports which illustrate benefits to be derived from as well as difficulties involved in using exception handling, summarise practical results of employing advanced exception handling models and the best practices in applying exception handling for developing modern applications.

Position papers are to be submitted using the submission site. Submissions should be up to 12 pages in the standard LNCS format.

Deadline for submission extended - June 9

Notification June 15

Final papers submission June 30

Workshop chairs

Alexander Romanovsky University of Newcastle upon Tyne

Christophe Dony Universite Montpellier-II

Joergen Lindskov Knudsen Mjolner Informatics A/S

Anand Tripathi University of Minnesota