Static and Dynamic Assertion Mechanisms for Communicating Framework Concepts

According to our experience, typical problems in framework development are caused by misunderstandings between users and developers regarding key concepts and mechanisms of the framework. We identify three classes of such problems, which we call the interaction, execution phases and object composition problem classes. For each of the problem classes, we propose lightweight formal description techniques similar to assertions for communicating the underlying concepts and mechanisms and for enabling automatic checks whether the framework is used properly. 1. Introduction It is widely accepted that developing good application frameworks is hard. Most of the problems in framework development have their roots in the difficulty of understanding and communicating the core concepts and mechanisms of a framework. For three key activities in the development process of a successful framework, overcoming this difficulty is particularly important. First, it is necessary to communicate the framewor..