Macroprogramming: Concepts, State of the Art, and Opportunities of Macroscopic Behaviour Modelling

Macroprogramming refers to the theory and practice of expressing the macro(scopic) behaviour of a collective system using a single program. Macroprogramming approaches are motivated by the need of effectively capturing global/system-level aspects and the collective behaviour of multiple computational components, while abstracting over low-level details. Previously, this programming style had been primarily adopted to describe the data-processing logic in sensor networks; recently, research forums on spatial computing, collective systems, and the Internet of Things have provided renewed interest in macro-approaches. However, related contributions are still fragmented and lack conceptual consistency. Therefore, to foster principled research, an integrated view of the field is provided, together with opportunities and challenges.