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Watson, Michael P.

Computer Science

2014

M.S.

Programming wireless sensor networks is a notoriously dlifficult task due to severe resource constraints at the sensor node level. One approach to this issue, Scalaness/nesT, uses staged programming to offload computations from the sensor node to a more powerful base station and subsequently specialize the sensor network code with the results. Scalaness and nesT are implemented versions of DScalaness and DnesT, two foundational languages that were presented with a well-founded type theory based on the principle of cross-staged type safety. This thesis details the implementation of the DScalaness/DnesT type theory into the actual Scalaness/nesT languages, focusing on how the implemented type checking system maintains the strict type principles set forth in the foundational languages.
The first stage language Scalaness is an enhanced version of the object oriented programming language Scala, and its type checking system is implemented through direct modification of the Scala compiler. The second stage language nesT is implemented as a type safe dialect of sensor network programming language nesC, and its type checking system was built from the ground up. Through exploration of the type checking implementation details of both the first and second stage languages, this thesis provides a fully functional demonstration of the principles of cross-stage type safety.