Interruptible context-dependent executions: a fresh look at programming context-aware applications

Abstract

Context-aware applications provide end-users with enhanced experiences by continuously sensing their environment and adapting their behaviour to match the current context of use. However, developing true context-aware applications remains notoriously difficult due to the unpredictable nature of context changes. A context change may occur at any moment during a procedure execution, which may require an ongoing execution to be promptly interrupted in order to prevent the procedure from running in a wrong context. Currently, developers have to manually constrain a procedure execution to a particular context and take care of saving and restoring the execution state between context changes. Such manual approaches are error-prone and may lead to incorrect application behaviour.