[squeak-dev] Graduation position (Smalltalk involved), Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Hi all,

We've a graduation position for the following project:

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Title:  "Domain descriptions & execution platforms"

1) Problem

Current dependencies between business domain descriptions and
execution platform make our software product less flexible in using
alternative execution platforms.

2) Research question

How to increase flexibility in using alternative execution platforms
for our business domain descriptions?

3) Research goal

Research if and how our current business domain descriptions can be
executed on an alternative execution platform (e.g. Java, Python).

4) Context

In our system the business domain is described in a high level of
abstraction. The general idea is to enable our "business modelers" to
describe their knowledge about the business domain within this high
level of abstraction. They do not have to worry about all kinds of
implementation aspects such as persistency, user interface
technologies, classes, variables, referential integrity, etc, because
the code for these technical aspects is automatically generated from
the business domain descriptions.

The business domain descriptions, the code generators as well as most
part of the generated code is expressed in the programming language
Smalltalk (VisualWorks).

Even though we're very happy with our approach and with Smalltalk, we
realize there are possibilities for a stricter boundary between
business domain descriptions and execution platform. This will give us
more flexibility in choosing different (potentially more interesting) deployment
strategies.

A student could research if and how our current business domain model
descriptions can be executed on an alternative execution platform
(e.g. Java, Python). This research might conclude other platforms are
not easily supported, because certain constructions in our current
descriptions are to Smalltalk specific. In such a case, it should be
made clear what the consequences are to remove the Smalltalk
dependencies from our current business domain descriptions.

5) About AG5

We are a small company (6 people, of which 5 developers). We believe
our in-house base-technology R&D and our use of a dynamic and
reflective development language (Smalltalk) help us being very
successful in a competitive market. Since our start in the December
2005, we are focused on development and sales of one product: a
people's skills & schedule management system for fire-, health care-,
safety departments. More than 100 governmental institutions work daily
with our web-based system.

One of our developers is a former computer science teacher with
experience in assisting students for their graduation.

When you are interested in doing your research or work within our
company, let us know! Send your email with motivation to  mathieu  at
ag5 . nl.

Greetings,

Mathieu van Echtelt

www.ag5.nl
Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Hi Edgar,

No we did not loose faith. We think it is good to separate
execution/deployment mode from development mode. (isn't this the same
reason why we have virtual machines in the first place?). In execution
mode you have different requirements (e.g. scalability, speed,
supporting hosting providers) compared to being in development mode
(e.g. live debugging, instant feedback, reflection).

This graduation project is not about going away from Smalltalk or
going to java, python or whatever other technology with an identifying
name. It is about investigating separation, and we believe it is a
good approach to pick an execution platform which is especially
not-smalltalk to help us prove/investigate if our "business
descriptions" are indeed as implementation independent as we hope they
are.

Of one thing we are sure though: In many many many ways Smalltalk is
absolutely superior (even after all those years it is around!) but is not
the end, nor is Python, nor is Java.

greetings,
Mathieu van Echtelt





On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Edgar J. De Cleene
<[hidden email]> wrote:


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AG5 - Product manager



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AG5 - Product manager