Contexts for Organizational Information System Design and Implementation

In this article we sustain that Contextual Constraint Logic Programming (CxCLP for short) is a useful paradigm in which to specify and implement Organizational Information Systems, particularly when integrated with the ISCO mediator framework. We briefly introduce the language and its underlying paradigm, appraising it from the angle of both of its ancestries: Logic and Object-Oriented Programming. An initial implementation has been developed and is being actively used in a real-world setting – Universidade de vora’s Academic Information System. We briefly describe both the prototype implementation and its first large-scale application. We conclude that the risk taken in adopting a developing technology such as the one presented herein for a mission-critical system has paid off, in terms of both development ease and flexibility as well as in maintenance requirements.