Breaking Down the Walls: A Unified Vision on Context-Oriented Software Engineering

Mens, Kim [UCL] Cardozo Alvarez, Nicolás [UCL] Dumas, Bruno [UNamur] Cleve, Anthony [UNamur]

In this presentation, we present the need for a unified vision on context-oriented software engineering, that reconciles different research areas in computer science, including programming languages, human-computer interaction, and database technology. We identify three dimensions wherein proposed solutions for achieving context orientation could benefit from cross-fertilisation and integration. We present a conceptual and implementation framework that allows for a characterisation of context-oriented systems regardless of these dimensions, serving as a vehicle to discuss some of the challenges involved in reconciling the different dimensions and how to tackle them.