est. 1962,
revised 1982, 1990
AIMS
To obtain a
deeper understanding of programming concepts in order to improve the quality of
software by studying all aspects of the software development process, both
theoretical and practical.
SCOPE
The scope of
the committee encompasses all aspects of the software development process
including the specification, design, implementation and validation of software
systems. Areas of present activity are:
WG2.1
- Algorithmic Languages and Calculi
est. 1962, revised 1963, 1990, 1992
AIMS
To explore and
evaluate new ideas in the field of programming, possibly leading to the design
of new languages.
SCOPE
·
the study of calculation of programs from specifications;
·
the design of notations for such calculations;
·
the formulation of algorithm theories, using such notations;
·
the investigation of software support for program derivation;
·
continuing responsibility for ALGOL 60 and ALGOL 68.
WG2.2
- Formal Description of Programming-Concepts
est. 1965, revised 1991
AIMS
The aim of the
Working Group is to explicate programming concepts through the development,
examination and comparison of various formal models of these concepts.
SCOPE
The Working
Group will investigate formalisms and models which represent different
approaches to formal specification of programming concepts. The models of
concern must, at least in part:
·
apply to the actual computing milieu;
·
have sufficient generality to describe total systems or useful
subsystems;
·
treat either:
- problem specification or
- solution specification;
·
provide practical guides towards derivation of:
- capabilities,
- correctness,
- equivalence,
- implementability,
- performance;
·
assist in standards development and specification;
·
have a pedagogical utility.
WG2.3
- Programming Methodology
est. 1969, revised 1991
AIMS
To increase
programmers' ability to compose programs.
SCOPE
·
identification of sources of difficulties encountered in present
day programming;
·
the interdependence between the formulation of problems and the
formulation of programs, and the mapping of relations existing in the world of
problems into relations among programs and their components;
·
intellectual disciplines and problem-solving techniques which can
aid programmers in the composition of programs;
·
the problem of achieving program reliability;
·
the consequences of requirements for program adaptability;
·
the problem of probability of program correctness and its
influence on the structure of programs and on the process of their composition;
·
guidelines for partitioning large programming tasks and defining
the interfaces between the parts;
·
software for mechanized assistance to program
composition.
WG2.4
- Software Implementation Languages
est.
1973, revised 1991, 1992
AIMS
To promote the
exchange of information between researchers and users of languages for the
description of software systems at all stages of development and support. The
particular focus of the group is upon the pragmatic engineering aspects of the
problem: measurements, evaluation, critical comparisons, and development of
economically viable techniques.
SCOPE
·
experience in the actual use of systems implementation languages;
·
the relation of language design to the problems of system
maintenance and enhancement;
·
impacts of programming methodology on system implementation
languages;
·
compilation techniques for system implementation languages;
·
software and hardware environments to facilitate the design,
construction and maintenance of large software systems;
·
software portability and reusability, and their
relationship to machine dependence.
WG2.5
- Numerical Software
est.
1974, revised 1991, 2006
AIMS
To improve the
quality of scientific computation by promoting the development and availability
of sound numerical software.
SCOPE
1.
Environment. The definition from a
numerical standpoint of a set of hardware and software features for a computing
system.
2.
Tools. The development and
improvement of programming languages and other tools for numerical computation.
3.
Algorithms. The establishment of
guidelines for the assessment of numerical algorithms and their
implementations.
4.
Software. The establishment of
guidelines for the preparation, interoperability, verification, validation,
documentation, distribution and maintenance of numerical software.
5.
Data. The establishment of
guidelines for the validation, documentation, preservation, and distribution of
numerical data.
6.
Communication. The exchange of
information concerning numerical software and the determination of the needs of
computer users.
WG2.6
- Database
est. 1974, revised 1985, 1991, 1997
AIMS
For the benefit
of society, to promote visibility and to increase the impact of research and
development in the database area, especially in the fields defined in the scope
of the working group.
·
To promote quality and relevance of academic and industrial
research and development in the database area.
·
To promote ethical behavior and appropriate recommendations or
guidelines for research related activities, e.g. submission and selection of
publications, organization of conferences, allocation of grants and awards, and
evaluation of professional merits and curricula.
·
To promote cooperation between researchers and with other
established bodies and organizations pursuing the above aims.
·
To contribute to assessing the scientific merits and practical
relevance of proposed approaches for data and knowledge management.
SCOPE
The notion of
database has evolved to include systems that accept, describe, store and enable
manipulation and presentation of data, information and knowledge in a wide
spectrum of forms, ranging from tuples to rules, text, images, sounds and
others, with their corresponding operators, usage and management.
The group's
interests cover formalisms, models, architectures, techniques and methodologies
for the purpose of designing and realizing such database systems.
These currently
include in particular:
·
new models, languages and theories for database design and
representation
·
new architectures and techniques, e.g. data warehouses, data
mining, multimedia and spatio-temporal databases
·
impact of new communication technologies, such as Internet,
broadband networks or wireless communications
·
understanding, reuse and interoperation of existing data stores
·
visual user interfaces and information visualization
·
new methodologies for building database applications
WG2.7
- User Interface Engineering
est. 1975, revised 1987, 1991
AIMS
To investigate
the nature, concepts and construction of user interfaces for software
systems.
SCOPE
·
increase understanding of the development of user
interfaces based on knowledge of system and user behaviour.
·
provide a framework for reasoning about interactive systems;
·
provide an engineering model for the development
of user interfaces.
WG2.8
- Functional Programming
est. 1987, revised 1991
AIMS
To study the design, implementation, and use of functional (applicative)
languages.
SCOPE
·
semantic theories for functional languages;
·
specification and correctness for functional programs;
·
data and demand driven execution models;
·
programming with higher-order functions;
·
functional approaches to input-output and persistent memory;
·
programming systems based on functional languages;
·
novel architectures for functional programming systems;
·
implementation based on combinator graph
reduction;
·
multiple processor implementations;
·
programming styles and techniques appropriate for functional
languages;
·
applications and experience.
WG2.9
- Software Requirements Engineering)
est.
1993
AIMS
The aim of the
Working Group is to develop a better understanding of:
·
the elicitation, specification, analysis and management of the
requirements for large and complex software intensive systems;
·
the interpretation and documentation of those
requirements in such a way as to permit the developer to construct a system
which will satisfy them.
SCOPE
The Scope of
the WG includes all aspects of requirements engineering. Some examples of areas
of special interest are:
·
formal representation schemes and requirements modelling;
·
descriptions of the requirements engineering process;
·
tools and environments to support requirements engineering;
·
requirements engineering methods;
·
requirements analysis and validation;
·
requirements elicitation, acquisition and formalisation;
·
methods and tools for verification of implementations compliance
with requirements;
·
reuse and adaptation of requirements;
·
domain modelling and analysis;
·
requirements engineering for distributed, safety-critical,
composite, real-time and embedded systems.
WG2.10
- Software Architecture
est.
2000
AIMS
The purpose of
WG 2.10 is to further the practice of software architecture by integrating
software architecture research and practice.
Software
architecture is concerned with
·
the structure and organization by which components and subsystems
interact to form systems, and
·
the properties of a system that can best be designed
and analyzed at the system level, for example end-to-end performance and
system-family compatibility.
Software
architecture is important because
·
it captures and preserves designers' intentions about system
structure, thereby providing a defense against design decay as a system ages,
and
·
it is the key to achieving intellectual control
over the enormous complexity of a sophisticated system.
Some of the
concerns of a software architect are
·
early analysis of critical whole-system properties and
·
preservation of the integrity of
design over time in the face of system modifications and the creation of
families of related systems.
SCOPE
The aspects of
software architecture within the working group's scope are:
·
identifying common problems encountered by practitioners,
·
investigating notations, languages, techniques, tools, and
methodologies for improving the practice of software architecture; current
areas for improvement are describing software architectures, supporting reuse
at the architectural level, interoperability and integration, evaluating and
analyzing software architectures (e.g. for fulfillment of requirements or
properties, comparing design alternatives, etc.), supporting the correspondence
between the architecture and the implementation, reverse-engineering the
architecture of an implemented system,
·
training, education, and certification of
software architects.
WG2.11
– Program Generation
est.
2003
AIMS
Generative approaches
have the potential to revolutionize software development as automation and
components revolutionized manufacturing.
At the same time, the
abundancy of current research in this area indicates that there is a host of
technical problems both at the foundational and
engineering levels. As such, the aim of this Working Group of
researchers and practitioners is to promote progress in this area.
SCOPE
The scope of this WG
includes the design, analysis, generation, and quality control of generative
programs and the programs that they generate.
Specific research themes
include (but are not limited to the following areas):
WG2.12/12.4
- Web Semantics
est.
2004, revised 2005
AIMS
The aim of the
WG2.12 is to obtain a deeper understanding of the semantic web, and help in the
development of its theoretical foundations and technological underpinning, as
well as its impact on computing in general.
SCOPE
The scope of
the working-group includes:
·
Study of the formal and practical knowledge representation issues
of the semantic web
·
Provide input into developing standards for adding semantics to
the web and their enabling technologies
·
Design, evaluation and use of ontologies
·
Study of the semantics of agent and web interaction
·
Issues related to the development, design and deployment of web
services particularly the impact of semantic aspects
·
Metrics for evaluation of the quality of web semantics
·
Studies of human centered aspects specifically for the semantic
web
·
Study of the impact of semantic web computing on organizations and
society
·
Interoperability of data and Web Services including aspects of
Trust and Security
·
Content-based information and knowledge retrieval
·
Metadata and knowledge markup
·
Information extraction, automatic and semi-automatic generation of
meta data
WG2.13
– Open Source Software
est. 2006
AIMS
To enable a diverse community of researchers and practitioners to rigorously investigate the technology, work practices, development processes, community dynamics within free, libre and open source software (OSS) systems, complementing appropriately other IFIP Working Groups where OSS is increasingly relevant.
SCOPE
Software engineering perspective
Studies of
Social science perspective
External perspectives & influences