Using Code Parameters for Component Adaptations

Adaptation means that the behavior of a software component is adjusted to application- or platform-specific requirements: new components required in a particular application do not need to be developed from scratch when available components can be adapted accordingly. Instead of introducing a new adaptation syntax (as it is done, e. g. , in AOP), we describe adaptations in the context of Java-based Higher-Order Components (HOCs). HOCs incorporate a code parameter plugin mechanism enabling adaptations on the grid. Our approach is illustrated using a case study of sequence alignment. We show how a HOC with the required provisions for data dependencies in this application can be generated by adapting a farm component, which is ”embarrassingly parallel”, i. e. , free of data dependencies. This way, we could reuse the efficient farm implementation from the Lithium library, although our case study exhibits the wavefront pattern of parallelism which is different from the farm.