Managing software complexity with power-generics

Abstract

Complexity of software quickly approaches the limits of what today’s programming paradigm can handle. Similarities (i.e., similar requirements, design solutions, as well as program structures) are inherent in software domain. In the paper, we discuss unexploited potentials of software similarities to ease management of complex software systems. We describe the concept of power-generics to exploit this potential. A key idea is meta-program level flexible parameterization, without restrictions of C++ templates or Java generics. To illustrate the concept, we discuss ART (Adaptive Reuse Technique) that extends conventional programming paradigms with an unconventional generative technique, in a synergistic and easy to adopt way. With ART, we illustrate general concepts discussed in the first part of the paper.