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2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Blech, Imperative Synchronous Programming!

Authors : Friedrich Gretz, Franz-Josef Grosch

Published in: Languages, Design Methods, and Tools for Electronic System Design

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

We discuss how separate compilation and usage of structured data can be achieved in a synchronous imperative programming language for embedded systems. Our focus is on the practical aspects of these questions regarding expressiveness in programs as well as causality analysis and code generation. The approach is illustrated by means of examples written in our new language Blech. In particular, we revisit the stopwatch example from the literature to discuss causality, separate compilation, and other aspects of software engineering in more depth. This is an extended version of a previously published article.
previous chapter AADD-Based Symbolic Simulation of SystemC AMS
Footnotes
1
Blech is German and colloquially translates to “bare metal” highlighting our focus on deeply embedded architectures.
 
2
For a quick overview see [16].
 
3
Here let should not be confused with the same keyword in functional languages where it binds a free variable in a subsequent subexpression.
 
4
By default enumerations are opened and hence their tags may be accessed without specifying the type name.
 
5
It is not a predefined keyword as in Java but an arbitrary identifier as in F#.
 
8
In Simulink, delays are used in the same fashion to resolve algebraic loops.
 
9
With the need for creating a software library for different platforms, it is obvious that support for interface-based programming is clearly a requirement for Blech.
 
Literature
1.
Aguado, J., Mendler, M., Pouzet, M., Roop, P. S., & von Hanxleden, R. (2017). Clock-synchronised shared objects for determinisitic concurrency. In Research Report Bamberger Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsinformatik und Angewandten Informatik, p. 102. Bamberg: Otto-Friedrich-Universität.
2.
Aguado, J., Mendler, M., Pouzet, M., Roop, P. S., & von Hanxleden, R. (2018). Deterministic concurrency: A clock-synchronised shared memory approach. In A. Ahmed (Ed.), Proceedings of Programming Languages and Systems—27th European Symposium on Programming, ESOP 2018, Held As Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2018, Thessaloniki 14–20 April 2018. Lecture notes in computer science (Vol. 10801, pp. 86–113). Berlin: Springer.
3.
Ahamad, M., Neiger, G., Burns, J. E., Kohli, P., & Hutto, P. W. (1995). Causal memory: Definitions, implementation, and programming. Distributed Computing, 9(1), 37–49. MathSciNetCrossRef
4.
Benveniste, A., Caspi, P., Edwards, S. A., Halbwachs, N., Le Guernic, P., & De Simone, R. (2003). The synchronous languages 12 years later. Proceedings of the IEEE, 91(1), 64–83. CrossRef
5.
Benveniste, A., Caillaud, B., & Raclet, J. B. (2012). Application of interface theories to the separate compilation of synchronous programs. In Proceedings of the 51th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2012, Maui, 10–13 December 2012 (pp. 7252–7258). Piscataway: IEEE.
6.
Berry, G. (1989). Programming a digital watch in Esterel v3. Le Chesnay: INRIA. Research Report RR-1032.
7.
Brandt, J., & Schneider, K. (2009). Separate compilation for synchronous programs. In Falk, H. (Ed.), 12th International Workshop on Software and Compilers for Embedded Systems, SCOPES ’09, Nice, 23–24 April 2009 (pp. 1–10). New York: ACM.
8.
Colaço, J. L., Pagano, B., & Pouzet, M. (2017). SCADE 6: A formal language for embedded critical software development (invited paper). In Mallet, F., Zhang, M., & Madelaine, E. (Eds.), 11th International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Software Engineering, TASE 2017, Sophia Antipolis, 13–15 September 2017 (pp. 1–11). Piscataway: IEEE.
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Hanxleden, R. V., Mendler, M., Aguado, J., Duderstadt, B., Fuhrmann, I., Motika, C., et al. (2013). Sequentially constructive concurrency—A conservative extension of the synchronous model of computation. Kiel: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Department of Computer Science. Technical Report 1308. ISSN 2192-6247.
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Hanxleden, R. V., Mendler, M., Aguado, J., Duderstadt, B., Fuhrmann, I., Motika, C., et al. (2014). Sequentially constructive concurrency—A conservative extension of the synchronous model of computation. ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, 13(4s), 144:1–144:26.
11.
Lublinerman, R., Szegedy, C., & Tripakis, S. (2009). Modular code generation from synchronous block diagrams: Modularity vs. code size. In Shao, Z., & Pierce, B. C. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 36th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, POPL 2009, Savannah, 21–23 January 2009, pp. 78–89. New York: ACM.
12.
Potop-Butucaru, D., Edwards, S. A., & Berry, G. (2007). Compiling esterel. Berlin: Springer.
13.
Sant’Anna, F., Ierusalimschy, R., Rodriguez, N., Rossetto, S., & Branco, A. (2017). The design and implementation of the synchronous language CÉU. ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, 16(4), 98:1–98:26.
14.
Schneider, K., & Brandt, J. (2017). Quartz: A synchronous language for model-based design of reactive embedded systems (pp. 29–58). Dordrecht: Springer.
15.
Von Hanxleden, R., Duderstadt, B., Motika, C., Smyth, S., Mendler, M., Aguado, J., Mercer, S., & O’Brien, O. (2014). Sccharts: Sequentially constructive statecharts for safety-critical applications: Hw/sw-synthesis for a conservative extension of synchronous statecharts. In O’Boyle, M. F. P., & Pingali, K. (Eds.), ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation, PLDI ’14, Edinburgh, 09–11 June 2014 (pp. 372–383). New York: ACM.
16.
Metadata
Title
Blech, Imperative Synchronous Programming!
Authors
Friedrich Gretz
Franz-Josef Grosch
Copyright Year
2020
Book
Languages, Design Methods, and Tools for Electronic System Design

Print ISBN: 978-3-030-31584-9

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-31585-6

Copyright Year: 2020

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31585-6_9