A Survey of Multitier Programming

Abstract

Multitier programming deals with developing the components that pertain to different tiers in the system (e.g., client and server), mixing them in the same compilation unit. In this paradigm, the code for different tiers is then either generated at run time or it results from the compiler splitting the codebase into components that belong to different tiers based on user annotations, static analysis, types, or a combination of these. In the Web context, multitier languages aim at reducing the distinction between client and server code, by translating the code that is to be executed on the clients to JavaScript or by executing JavaScript on the server, too. Ultimately, the goal of the multitier approach is to improve program comprehension, simplify maintenance and enable formal reasoning about the properties of the whole distributed application. A number of multitier research languages have been proposed over the last decade, which support various degrees of multitier programming and explore different design tradeoffs. In this article, we provide an overview of the existing solutions, discuss their positioning in the design space, and outline open research problems.

Could Tierless Languages Reduce IoT Development Grief?

“…Tierless languages have been developed for a range of distributed paradigms, including web applications, client-server applications, mobile applications, and generic distributed systems. A recent and substantial survey of these tierless technologies is available [82]. Here we provide a brief introduction to tierless languages with a focus on IoT software.…”

“…code annotations or coniguration iles, and at diferent granularities, e.g. per function or per class [82].…”

Macroprogramming: Concepts, State of the Art, and Opportunities of Macroscopic Behaviour Modelling

“…Centralised programming This term (Gude et al, 2008;Lima et al, 2006) commonly refers to programming a distributed system through a single program where distribution is (partially (Waldo et al, 1996)) abstracted away, i.e., like if the distributed system were a centralised system, namely a software system on a single computer deployment. An example of centralised programming is multi-tier programming (Weisenburger et al, 2020). This notion is certainly related to macroprogramming, since a "centralised perspective" where several distributed components can be addressed at once is a macroscopic perspective.…”

“…Essentially, directly feeding micro-operations to the micro-level entities or specifying the individual behaviours of the parts breaks the macroprogramming abstraction, or makes it leaky (Spolsky, 2004;Kiczales, 1992). This is one reason (in addition to limited emphasis on behaviour) for which, e.g., formalisms for concurrent systems such as process-algebraic approaches (Baeten, 2005), certain component-based approaches, and multi-tier programming (Weisenburger et al, 2020) are not generally considered macroprogramming. However, several approaches in literature defined themselves as macroprogramming despite basically embodying merely a form of centralised programming.…”

Language Support for Secure Software Development with Enclaves

“…The J E programming model is inspired by the multitier programming paradigm [65], [66], [67] -for a comprehensive overview of multitier programming, we refer to the survey by Weisenburger et al [68]. In multitier programming, the code for different tiers is written as a single compilation unit and the compiler automatically splits it into the components associated to each individual tier.…”