Chameleon – a group communication framework for smartphones. (29th July 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dvinsky, Alex; Friedman, Roy
• Is Part Of: Software, practice & experience. Volume 45:Number 10(2015)
• Page Start: 1429
• Page End: 1455
• Publication Date: 2014-07-29
• Subjects: Computer software -- Periodicals; Computer programming -- Periodicals; Computer programs -- Periodicals; 005.3
• DOI: 10.1002/spe.2277
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0038-0644

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="spe2277-abs-0001"> <title>Summary</title> <p id="spe2277-para-0001">This paper reports about our experience in designing and developing <italic>Chameleon</italic>, a highly portable and adaptable group communication framework for smartphones. Chameleon owes its level of portability to several design choices, including the following: (i) a layered architecture, where the headers of each layer have a standard XML‐based format, enabling automatic, error‐resistant generation of efficient serialization code in any platform; (ii) reliance only on the J2ME library, which serves as least common denominator for Java dialects and facilitates automatic translation to.NET; (iii) having flexible membership models; and (iv) supporting multiple concurrent protocol stacks.Through a single codebase, <italic>Chameleon</italic> is currently available as an open‐source project for J2ME, J2SE, Android, .NET CF, and.NET. <italic>Chameleon</italic> is easily extendable and is bundled with tools, configurations, and third‐party code tuned in a way that lifts some of the burden normally associated with multiplatform development for smartphones. Both the header generation from XML and automatic translation to.NET features of Chameleon are readily available to any application that is based on it. <italic>Chameleon</italic>'s threading model separates between execution of internal layers and application's code and by that protects one from the other. As we describe in the paper, it simplifies layers' development and allows the protocol stack to easily block application calls when this is required by internal algorithms. Additionally, this model simplifies testing, and an extensive testing framework is supplied along with <italic>Chameleon</italic>, which is also usable for testing of application‐specific layers. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.</p> </abstract>