Object-orientation in Java for scientific programmers

The ability to adapt a software artifact is essential toward handling evolving stakeholder requirements. Adaptation is also vital in many areas where software is required to adjust to changing environment conditions (e.g., the growing presence of embedded systems). Current techniques for supporting adaptability and evolvability can be categorized as static (happening at compile-time or design-time), or dynamic (adaptation during the actual execution of the system). This paper describes a specialtopics software engineering course that uses Java as a foundation for teaching concepts of static and dynamic adaptation. The course surveys Java-related research in the areas of meta-programming and reflection, aspect-oriented software development, model-driven computing, and adaptive middleware.

Concurrency: Practice and …, 1997

for parallel computing and as a general language for scientific and engineering simulation and modeling" (1997). Northeast Parallel Architecture Center. Paper 17.

ESAIM: Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Analysis, 2002

This contribution gives an overview of current research in applying object oriented programming to scientific computing at the computational mechanics laboratory (LABMEC) at the school of civil engineering-UNICAMP. The main goal of applying object oriented programming to scientific computing is to implement increasingly complex algorithms in a structured manner and to hide the complexity behind a simple user interface. The following areas are current topics of research and documented within the paper: hp-adaptive finite elements in one-, two-and three dimensions with the development of automatic refinement strategies, multigrid methods applied to adaptively refined finite element solution spaces and parallel computing.

Software: Practice and Experience, 2012

This paper presents AIBench, a Java desktop application framework mainly focused on scientific software development, with the goal of improving the productivity of research groups. Following the MVC design pattern, the programmer is able to develop applications using only three types of concepts: operations, data-types and views. The framework provides the rest of the functionality present in typical scientific applications, including user parameter requests, logging facilities, multi-threading execution, experiment repeatability and graphic user interface generation, among others. The proposed framework is implemented following a plugin-based architecture which also allows assembling new applications by the reuse of modules from past development projects.

1998

Abstract We argue that for computing majors, it is better to use a 'why'approach to teaching programming than a 'how'approach; this involves (among other things) teaching structured programming before progressing to higher-level styles such as object-oriented programming. We also argue that, once it has been decided to teach structured programming, Java is a reasonable language to choose for doing so. Keywords: Java, structured programming, object-oriented programming, teaching.

The Architecture of Scientific Software, 2001

Java is quickly becoming the most popular platform for distributed computing. However, its performance is still subject to concerns in comparison to other programming languages such as C and Fortran. As a consequence, programmers of high-performance applications are usually reluctant to embrace Java as an alternative language in their work. This article introduces the Java-to-C Interface (JCI) tool which generates automatically the wrapper code interfacing existing scientific libraries to Java. Thus, facilitating rapid development and software reuse, the JCI tool provides application programmers with immediate accessibility to existing scientific libraries from Java. While beneficial to the software developer, the additional advantages of mixed-language programming in terms of application performance are addressed in detail within the context of this work. We also present analysis and comparisons of evaluation results for mixed-language codes in Java and C/Fortran on a high-performance distributed memory computer (IBM SP-2). The NAS Embarrassingly Parallel and Integer Sort benchmarks as well as the Matrix Multiplication kernel from the PARKBENCH suite were selected for our experiments. The evaluation results demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of our mixed-language programming methodology with Java.

Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Object-oriented Programming, Systems and Languages, OOPSLA'98, Vancouver, October 1998, ACM ISBN 1-58113-005, 1998

This paper describes the structure, content, and pedagogy of the largest object-oriented course in the world: the Open University's new introduction to computing, for which over 5,000 students have enrolled for its first year. The course introduces computing from a systems-building stance - specifically, through object technology, Smalltalk and our own adaptation and extension of Goldberg's LearningWorks programming environment. Covering, among other topics, the standard Smalltalk classes, HCI and object-oriented analysis and design, the course is designed to be accessible to both computing and non-computing majors. The course has a strong vocational bias, as is expected by students whose average age is 37. This is most evident in computer mediated group working projects. Delivered in the distance learning mode, the course is fully multimedia, including CD-ROM, broadcast television and the Web.

Computing in Science and Engineering, 2001

Does Java have a role to play in the world of numerical computing? We strongly believe so. Java has too much to offer to be ignored. First of all, Java is portable at both the source and object format levels. The source format for Java is the text in a .java file. The object format is the bytecode in a .class file. Either type of file is expected to behave the same on any computer with the appropriate Java compiler and Java virtual machine. Second, Java code is safe to the host computer. Programs (more specifically, applets) can be executed in a sandbox environment that prevents them from doing any operation (such as writing to a file or opening a socket) which they are not authorized to do. The combination of portability and safety opens the way to a new scale of web-based global computing, in which an application can run distributed over the Internet . Third, Java implements a simple object-oriented model with features that facilitate the learning curve for newcomers (e.g., single inheritance, garbage collection). But the most important feature Java has to offer is its pervasiveness, in all aspects. Java runs on virtually every platform. Universities all over the world are teaching Java to their students. Many specialized class libraries, from three-dimensional graphics to online transaction processing, are available in Java.