Characteristics of Modern System Implementation Languages

: Systems are written in systems implementation languages. What characterizes such languages in the mid-1990’s? This paper identifies the typical environment that a system is being targeted for these days – as opposed to twenty years ago – and emphasizes how this radically affects the language in which development proceeds. It then considers two directions that systems development is taking. The first relies heavily on design tools and methodologies, which are the means for describing the underlying structure of the system. The second interposes an additional layer of description between the design steps and the programming language, and maintains the structure here. The rest of the paper focuses on these intermediate languages, identifying their characteristics and advantages and looking at two examples, Darwin and UniCon. In conclusion, we highlight the (sometimes surprising) results that have emerged so far, and predict the way in which modern systems implementation languages ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1995
• Where: ACM
• Authors: Judy M. Bishop, R. Faria
• Keywords: ACM 1995, Development Proceeds, Systems Implementation Languages, Theoretical Computer Science, Typical Environment