The Nexus Research Group's main research is model-driven development tools for context-based
application.The aim of the research project is to simplify the building of context-based
applications. Therefore two major problems have to be solved. In the first place the
developer has to be provided a suitable abstraction in form of a domain-specific modelling
respectively programming language to specify context-based applications properly. Secondly,
this specification has to be transformed automatically into an efficient distributed implementation.
In context-based systems the single computer takes a back seat. The user solely perceives
the complete system. The same abstraction should be available to software engineers.
New developer tools will enable them to program against the complete system. It is of no
interest to them which device will contribute whatever part of the requested service and how
to coordinate them as this problem will be solved by generative developer tools.
Another advantage of the generative approach is the fact, that the tools are aware of
the application logic and therefore can apply application-specific optimizations
throughout all layers. Mere middleware-based solutions are not able to achieve this
since middleware has no knowledge about the application logic. Thus optimizing middleware
can only anticipate the further development out of the past. A generative approach based
on an application model promises better results.
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