The DOODLE project aims to build a complete programming environment for distributed computing on ParMa2 platform; since ParMa2 is based on standard, off-the-shelf hardware (PCs + Fast Ethernet) and software (Linux OS), many tools are already available all over the Internet, such as compilers, editors and symbolic debuggers. What is still missing is an integrated system to fully support the whole software development life-cycle, with a bias towards distributed systems and the Internet.
The DOODLE acronym stands for Distributed Object Oriented DeveLopment Environment; the system is made by several components :
A two-way CASE tool, supporting Rational Software's Unified Modeling Language notation and generating C++, Java and CORBA IDL.
An application integrator, providing support for version control, project build and documentation.
A multi-language class browser to navigate code and object repositories.
To aid in distributed application development, a distributed debugger showing network message exchanges and a performance analyzer to measure program execution speed and help locate system bottlenecks are needed.
The DOODLE system will mainly use a OMG CORBA compliant runtime system as communication middleware, but other choices might be eventually supported (in particular, an integration with MPIPR and HOOP is planned)