SoOSiM: Operating System and Programming Language Exploration

Abstract

SoOSiM is a simulator developed for the purpose of exploring operating system concepts and operating system modules. The simulator provides a highly abstracted view of a computing system, consisting of computing nodes, and compo- nents that are concurrently executed on these nodes. OS modules are subsequently modelled as components that progress as a result of reacting to two types of events: messages from other components, or a system-wide tick event. Using this abstract view, a developer can quickly formalize assertions regarding the interaction between operating system modules and applications. We developed a methodology on top of SoOSiM that enables the precise control of the interaction between a simulated application and the operating system. Embedded languages are used to model the application once, and different interpretations of the embedded language constructs are used to observe specific aspects on application’s execution. The combination of SoOSiM and embedded languages facilitates the exploration of program- ming language concepts and their interaction with the operating system.