Ascending the Ladder to Self-Sustainability: Achieving Open Evolution in an Interactive Graphical System

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11320%2F22%3A10456130" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11320/22:10456130 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3563835.3568736" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1145/3563835.3568736</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3563835.3568736" target="_blank" >10.1145/3563835.3568736</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Ascending the Ladder to Self-Sustainability: Achieving Open Evolution in an Interactive Graphical System

Original language description

Programming is usually based on an inconvenient separation between an implementation level and a user level. Self-sustaining systems expose their implementation at their user level so that they can be modified and improved from within. However, the few examples that exist are tightly linked to textual language-based accounts of compiler bootstrapping. If we want systems to be truly open for modification, we need to step beyond programming languages and support more structured, visual ways of programming as well. How the bootstrapping process can work in such an interactive context is important yet unexplored territory. This essay is a critical report on our first-hand experience of building one such system named BootstrapLab. We trace and reconstruct the steps for achieving self-sustainability in an interactive, structured, graphical context: choose the platform; design the substrate; implement temporary infrastructure; implement a high-level language; pay off outstanding substrate debt; provide for domain-specific notations. Throughout, we discuss the challenges involved, identifying design forces that shaped the decisions and capturing heuristics that resolved these forces in our case. Both positive and negative results are featured, including the efficacy of the heuristics. We close by suggesting how to generalise what worked in our particular case to alternative paths and starting points. The enterprise as a whole takes us a further step towards achieving open and malleable programming systems for everyone.

Czech name

—

Czech description

—

Type

D - Article in proceedings

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10201 - Computer sciences, information science, bioinformathics (hardware development to be 2.2, social aspect to be 5.8)

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Article name in the collection

Onward! 2022 - Proceedings of the 2022 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software, co-located with SPLASH 2022

ISBN

978-1-4503-9909-8

ISSN

—

e-ISSN

—

Number of pages

19

Pages from-to

240-258

Publisher name

ACM

Place of publication

Auckland

Event location

Auckland, New Zealand

Event date

Dec 8, 2022

Type of event by nationality

WRD - Celosvětová akce

UT code for WoS article

—