We present a framework for the automatic configuration of large systems from a library of reusable software components. Core of the framework is a modal logic that uniformly and elegantly captures type descriptions, module specifications and relative time. Whereas the first two 'dimensions' are treated similarly by means of a simple logic over a taxonomy of types and modules respectively, time is expressed by means of modalities. Besides allowing an elegant and transparent specification of module configurations, our framework also provides a minimal model generator that automatically generates minimal solutions to a specification problem. All this is illustrated for a practically relevant application: the automatic configuration of heterogeneous analysis from loose specifications.
Ulrike Peiker, Martin Griebl