A Refactoring Environment for Ada
The missile defense community currently has millions of lines of Ada code in systems that are still undergoing development, or that must be maintained for decades to come. Of these systems, THAAD is among the most highly visible. Unfortunately, the use of Ada is in decline. Fewer programmers are being trained in Ada, and many vendors have cut back on their tool support. However, in few cases does it make both economic and technical sense to migrate to a new language. More often, code written in Ada must continue to be developed and maintained.
Engineers working with Ada should have the best tools available for working with legacy code. Such tools should help with program understanding, software assurance, and the disciplined modification of programs to adapt to evolving needs. Under a Missile Defense Agency (MDA) SBIR contract, GrammaTech is developing a toolset to help with modifying legacy code in a manner that reduces the risk of introducing flaws to a minimum.
The system will be based on providing facilities for refactoring. To refactor code is to transform it in a disciplined way, in order to make it easier to understand and maintain, while retaining its essential semantics. Refactoring has recently emerged as a highly effective technique for developing and maintaining complex code. The proposed system will offer general-purpose refactoring transformations as well as customization facilities so that users can construct their own. These refactorings can be used in a maintenance and support role to adapt the code for new purposes, or to help get it in a form that can be easily translated to a new language.