MILESTONES

ADL Technology:

How (soon) will users reap the benefits?

The availability of the new Assertion Definition Language (ADL) automated test generation technology gives software developers a welcome opportunity to lower costs and increase the quality of their new applications.

The ADL technology is the result of a three-way alliance between the Information- technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA), X/Open, and Sun Microsystems Labs. ADL allows software developers to capture software interface specifications and automatically generate conformance tests and interface documentation.

The ADL technology provides significantly reduced costs because:

Test suites that every software developer requires can now be developed and delivered faster.
Interface specifications for software modules may be made more precise and error free, resulting in improved overall test coverage.
Divergence between specifications and test suites may now be eliminated.

What Does ADL Mean to Users?

The ultimate beneficiaries of the new technology are the users, thanks to the potential for decreased cycle times and development costs. But the most immediate benefits are to software developers and integrators, either ISVs or from the user community, who can use ADL to improve software component interoperability. And because the technology is being made widely available at no cost, there is a reasonable expectation that the benefits will be seen sooner, not later.

“IPA expects the free availability of the software and other deliverables will contribute to the advancement and development of the open systems industry, as well as aiding users to evaluate and improve their information technology,” says Noboru Akima, Deputy General Director, IPA.

Another critical factor is that the full potential of multi-vendor interoperability cannot be realized without comprehensive availability of test suites. ADL is considered a key component in X/Open’s plans for future test development. “There is no other way that X/Open, in a timely manner, would be able to cost-effectively develop and maintain the test suites the open systems industry requires,” explains James de Raeve, X/Open’s Testing Business Unit Manager.

The Power of Collaborative Development

The ADL research is being conducted under the Open Fundamental Software Technology Project of the IPA. The charter of this group is to research, develop, and evaluate the fundamental software which lies between the application and operating system, and to provide a common interface for applications functionally.

The IPA’s ADL research project was initiated in 1992 as part of the Open Fundamental Software Technology project. Since early 1993, Sun Labs has been a primary contributor of research and core technology for the project.

Developer Participation Is Strong.

As of October 1995, ADL had been used to develop two tests, for CORBA 1.2 and TET. In addition, the Japanese localized version is being used to develop tests for part of the POSIX specification. Work is currently underway for the development of other tests using ADL technology.

X/Open’s plans for ADL are aggressive, too. The company is working with OMG on specifying their CORBA 2 interfaces in ADL, and planning to develop the test suite for CORBA 2.0. In addition, X/Open plans to use ADL for the development of the test suite for CDE (Common Desktop Environment). Currently, ADL only supports C language, however, there are plans to extend ADL to cover C++ and the OMG IDL.

During the Beta release, software developers were encouraged to obtain the ADL technology and participate in the Beta test period. Their input contributed significantly to ADL 1.0, which was released in December 1995.

For follow-on…

http://www.ipa.go.jp/OFSTP/home.html
http://www.xopen.org/public/test/adl/adl.htm
http://www.smli.com/research/adl/adl.html

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