A software library model for the internet of things

Abstract

Heterogeneity, resource constraints, and scalability are obstacles to making the IoT approachable for non-specialist programmers. To be successful and appealing in these environments, library systems must be as space-efficient and flexible as possible without fundamentally changing the process of creating and maintaining shared software. Existing library frameworks emphasize some but not all of these attributes and rely on a monolithic model that preserves mutable state. We propose a finer-grained approach to software libraries that allows developers to use multiple components of a library concurrently at disjoint versions. This model defines a library as a set of independent functions with immutable global state to avoid maintaining distributed mutable state in dataflow environments. Library code is stored in a data dependency graph, which is traversed to produce a minimal copy of the library containing only what is necessary for a program. This design addresses the constraints of distributed systems and allows developers to quickly customize dependencies for their unique deployment situations. CCS Concepts: • Software and its engineering → Software libraries and repositories; Domain specific languages.