4 Lecture Series 3:
Overview of the Mjølner System

The purpose of this Lecture Series is to introduce the students to the Mjølner System. The lectures will present the BETA compiler, the various basic libraries, the persistent object system, the debugger, and the hyper structure editor. This Lecture Series should be accompanied with one of the following Lecture Series on using the Mjølner System on the specific platform (Macintosh or UNIX).

4.1 Topics

4.2 Lectures

4.2.1 Mjølner System Overview

Readings: [MMN 93, app.. B], [Knudsen 94, chap. 2]

Notes: This lecture is meant as an introduction to the entire Mjølner System. It presents the general architecture of the system and discusses several of the Mjølner tools.

4.2.2 Compiler and Basic Library

Readings: [MIA 90-2], [MIA 90-8], [Knudsen 94, chap. 26]

Notes: This lecture can be avoided since it only deals with the specifics of how to invoke the compiler, how to invoke BETA applications and how to understand the compiler and run-time error messages. This lecture also describes the layout and facilities of the basic BETA library, that any BETA program utilises. This library offers ordinary data types such as integers, boolean, etc., as well as several useful file access patterns.

4.2.3 Containers Library

Readings: [MIA 92-22]

Notes: The Containers libraries can be used as an example of a library family with extensive usage of the abstraction mechanisms of the BETA language (virtual class patterns and specialised control structure patterns).

4.2.4 Persistent Objects

Readings: [MIA 91-20], [Knudsen 94, chap. 11, 12]

Notes: The persistent store is designed for storage of BETA objects and is highly useable for "small-scale" external data storage (i.e. not designed for heavy database applications). An object-oriented database system for BETA objects is under development.

4.2.5 Distributed Objects

Readings: [MIA 94-25]

Notes: The distributed object system for BETA is designed and inplemented to enable BETA objects to be located anywhere on a network. Objects located on the network are accessed transparently from the other hosts on the network. Access to distributes objects are obtained through a naming service, implemented by the ensembles, who are the BETA abstractions for network hosts.

4.2.6 Process Communication

Readings: [MIA 94-29]

Notes: The process library implements process communication facilities for BETA programs, enabling them to communicate with other programs using operation system level communication means (such at TCP/IP).

4.2.7 The Mjølner System Tools

Readings: The different man-pages

Notes: In this lecture, you should present the individual tools in the Mjølner System: the source browser and editor, the debugger, the user interface editor, and the CASE tool. If these tools are used extensively in the courses, it would be a good idea to introduce the individual tools more extensively by accompanying this Lecture Series with the Lecture Series entirely devoted to the tools..


Teaching Package
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[Modified: Friday October 20th 2000 at 13:18]