[ecoop-info] RAM-SE'07: ECOOP Workshop on Reflection, AOP and Meta-Data for SW Evolution (CfP)

[Walter Cazzola]

(with apologies for multiple copies)

                                   RAM-SE'07
                             4th ECOOP Workshop on
              Reflection, AOP and Meta-Data for Software Evolution
                           Berlin, Germany, 31st July 2007
                    http://homes.dico.unimi.it/RAM-SE07.html

                             Call for Contributions

*Workshop Organizers*
Walter  Cazzola     University of Milano, Italy
Shigeru Chiba       Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
Yvonne  Coady       University of Victoria, Canada
Stéphane Ducasse    Université de Savoie, France
Günter Kniesel      Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Germany
Manuel Oriol        ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Gunter  Saake       Otto-von-Guericke Universität Magdeburg, Germany

*Workshop Description*
Software evolution and adaptation is a research area in continuous evolution,
and offering stimulating challenges for both academic and industrial
researchers. The evolution of software systems, to face unexpected situations
or just for improving their features, relies on software engineering
techniques and methodologies. Nowadays a similar approach is not applicable in
all situations e.g., for evolving nonstopping systems or systems whose code is
not available. Features of reflection such as transparency, separation of
concerns, and extensibility seem to be perfect tools to aid the dynamic
evolution of running systems. Aspect-oriented programming can simplify code
instrumentation whereas techniques that rely on meta-data can be used to
inspect the system and to extract the necessary data for designing the
heuristic that the reflective and aspect-oriented mechanism use for managing
the evolution. We feel the necessity to investigate the benefits brought by
the use of these techniques on the evolution of object-oriented software
systems. In particular we would determine how these techniques can be
integrated together with more traditional approaches to evolve a system and
the benefits we get from their use. This workshop can be a good meeting-point
for people working in the software evolution area, and an occasion to present
reflective, aspect-oriented and data mining based solutions to evolutionary
problems, and new ideas straddling these areas.

*Workshop Topics*
Particularly interesting for this workshop are works that focus on the
application of reflective, aspect-oriented and data-mining techniques to the
evolution of software systems. In particular, they include but are not limited
to:

   - aspect-oriented middleware and environments for software evolution;
   - adaptative software components and evolution as component composition; ­
   - evolution planning and deployment through aspect-oriented and reflective
     approaches; ­
   - aspect interference and composition for software evolution; ­
   - feature- and subject-oriented adaptation; ­
   - unanticipated software evolution supported by AOSD or reflective techniques; ­
   - MOF, code annotations and other metadata facilities for software evolution; ­
   - metrics and other evaluation mechanisms to evaluate the impact of software evolution techniques;­
   - AOP and reflection based design patterns for software evolution; ­
   - early aspect evolution, i.e., to design evolution by evolving the design
     information or the application in its early stages of development; ­

*Submissions*
Position papers (max 5-pages long) must be electronically sent (PS or PDF
file) to:
                             ram-se07 at dico.unimi.it

We are also planning to edit a journal special issue on the workshop topic and
invite the authors of the most interesting contributions to submit their work
to it.

*Important Dates*
Submission deadline:   13  May 2007 
Notification date:      1 June 2007
Camera Ready deadline:  1 July 2007
Workshop date:         31 July 2007

To ensure lively discussion at the workshop, the organizing committee will
choose the contributions on the basis of topic similarity that will permit the
beginning of new collaborations. To grant an easy dissemination of the
proposed ideas and to favorite an ideas interchange among the participants,
accepted contributions will be made available in advance over the Web.

*Workshop Format*
The workshop is a full day meeting. Part of the workshop will be devoted to
contribution of papers, and part will be devoted to panels and (we hope) to
interchange of ideas between participants. The workshop has to provide a
discussion forum about the evolution of the sector and has to permit new
collaborations to be established with other researchers. The workshop will be
particularly useful for young researchers who will be able to compare their
ideas with other people working on the field.