Combining Reflection and Finite State Diagrams for Design Enforcement

This paper presents a method for design enforcement, based on a combination of reeection and State Machine Diagrams. The method is supported by RECOS, a REEective system in a Concurrent Object-oriented environment that uses Finite State Diagrams. The reeection methodology is now a developing branch in computer science for controlling and modifying systems, particularly Object-Oriented systems. RECOS is a \base-system" under which other systems can be built. Combining concepts of Concurrent Object-Oriented design, Finite State Diagrams, and reeection leads to an increase in the reliability of the systems, by insuring that objects function according to their design. RECOS also presents a safe way for handling modiications of the systems. We attempt to provide the developer of a system under RECOS with an environment that balances between easing implementation eeort and guarding against unsafe implementations. We address here the issue of reeection, present the structure of RECOS, using as a running example a heating system, and brieey discuss implementation details and future work.