Subjectivity and Software System Generators 1

The tenet of subjectivity is that no single interface can adequately describe any object; interfaces to the same object will vary among different applications. Thus, objects with standardized interfaces seems too brittle a concept to meet the demands of a wide variety of applications. Yet, objects with standardized interfaces is a central idea in domain modeling. Domain models are the basis for generators that synthesize high-performance, domain-specific software systems with customized interfaces. In this paper, we reconcile this apparent contradiction by showing that objects (i.e., components) of generator libraries are not typical software modules; their interfaces (and bodies) actually mutate upon instantiation to a “standard” that is application-dependent.