Designing and Prototyping Data-Intensive Applications in the Logres and Algres Programming Environment

The authors present an environment and a methodology for the design and rapid prototyping of data-intensive software applications, i.e., applications which perform substantial retrieval and update activity on persistent data. In the approach, the application is formally specified using Logres, a database language which combines object-oriented data modeling and rule-based programming. These specifications are translated into Algres, an extended relational algebra, thus yielding a rapid executable prototype. Algres programs embedded into a conventional programming language interface may be converted to conventional programs operating on a commercial relational system. This methodology helps automate the conversion from declarative requirements to imperative code, performing several tasks fully automatically and reducing the probability of human errors, while integrity constraints and application specifications are expressed in a declarative language, at a very high level of abstraction.