Multiparadigm Programming
Final submissions due: 1 February 2010
Publication date: September/October 2010
For most of today’s applications, using one language and one paradigm—for instance, object-oriented programming—is inadequate. Today’s applications are often polyglot, involving multiple languages, and multiparadigm, involving a mixture of deployment directives as well as functional, relational, object-oriented, aspect-oriented, and other paradigms. IEEE Software is soliciting articles for a special issue on multiparadigm programming, or MPP. It will explore MPP technologies, advantages, disadvantages, and applications ranging from embedded and IT systems to the Internet.
Scope
Articles addressing any area of MPP are within this special issue’s scope. These topics are particularly welcome:
- A review of programming technologies that support a MPP approach to system development. This could include discussions of how modern languages such as Ruby, Scala, F#, Oslo, etc. mix and match MPP features. Also of interest would be approaches for applying MPP in more established languages such as Java and C++.
- Platforms, tools, and IDEs designed to support MPP—for example, the role of the Java VM and the .NET CLR as integration platforms for code written in multiple languages. We would like to include an analysis of the rise of integration, configuration, and deployment technologies that have become ubiquitous in MPP applications on Web frameworks, IDEs such as Eclipse, etc.
- Analysis of the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges of MPP in the software development life cycle—e.g., tooling, code complexity and succinctness, developer proficiency and productivity, quality, and long-term maintenance. Guidelines for MPP with evidence of best practices and requirements for tooling would be useful.
- Examples of hybrid technologies and applications that mix paradigms and/or languages—for example, articles showing how subsets of technologies (e.g., Web content, relational and nonrelational databases, client-server, domain-specific languages (DSLs), metaprogramming, modeling, assembler-level coding, hardware, GUI building, XML processing, code generation, and component assembly) can be mixed.
- Review of the current MPP technology landscape: what languages and platforms support MPP, what features do they offer, what are they suitable for, and what limitations do they have.
- Experience reports of developing, using, and maintaining systems based on multiple languages and paradigms. Particular types of systems might include
- industrial and commercial applications of MPP;
- implementing and using different languages on virtual machines (e.g., the JVM and .NET VM);
- mixing languages and paradigms for multitier applications (e.g., Internet and enterprise-IT systems);
- using scripting language “layers” in applications or embedded systems for greater productivity and efficiency.
- A roadmap of challenges and directions for language and platform technologies driven by the desire to support a MPP-based approach.
Questions?
For more information about this special issue, send email to any of the guest editors:
- Dean Wampler
- Michael Feathers, Object Mentor
- Tony Clark, Thames Valley University, London
Submission Information
Manuscripts must not exceed 5,400 words including figures and tables, which count for 200 words each. Longer submissions may be rejected without refereeing. The articles we deem within the theme's scope will be peer reviewed and are subject to editing for magazine style, clarity, organization, and space. We reserve the right to edit the title of all submissions. Be sure to include the name of the theme or special issue you are submitting for.
Articles should have a practical orientation and be written in a style accessible to practitioners. Overly complex, purely research-oriented, or theoretical treatments are not appropriate. Articles should be novel. IEEE Software does not republish material published previously in other venues, including other periodicals and formal conference or workshop proceedings, whether previous publication was in print or in electronic form.
See www.computer.org/software for information about IEEE Software and www.computer.org/software/author.htm for general author guidelines and instructions for submitting manuscripts (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sw-cs). Contact the peer review administrator for queries relating to submission details.