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The design of a class mechanism for Moby

Authors:

Kathleen Fisher,

John ReppyAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 34, Issue 5

Pages 37 - 49

https://doi.org/10.1145/301631.301638

Published: 01 May 1999 Publication History

Abstract

Typical class-based languages, such as C++ and JAVA, provide complex class mechanisms but only weak module systems. In fact, classes in these languages incorporate many of the features found in richer module mechanisms. In this paper, we describe an alternative approach to designing a language that has both classes and modules. In our design, we rely on a rich ML-style module system to provide features such as visibility control and parameterization, while providing a minimal class mechanism that includes only those features needed to support inheritance. Programmers can then use the combination of modules and classes to implement the full range of class-based features and idioms. Our approach has the advantage that it provides a full-featured module system (useful in its own right), while keeping the class mechanism quite simple.We have incorporated this design in MOBY, which is an ML-style language that supports class-based object-oriented programming. In this paper, we describe our design via a series of simple examples, show how various class-based features and idioms are realized in MOBY, compare our design with others, and sketch its formal semantics.

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Cited By

Hulette GSottile MMalony A(2012)A type-based approach to separating protocol from application logicProceedings of the 18th international conference on Parallel Processing10.1007/978-3-642-32820-6_6(40-51)Online publication date: 27-Aug-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-642-32820-6_6
Ramsey NFisher KGovereau P(2005)An expressive language of signaturesACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/1090189.108637140:9(27-40)Online publication date: 12-Sep-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1090189.1086371
Ramsey NFisher KGovereau PDanvy OPierce B(2005)An expressive language of signaturesProceedings of the tenth ACM SIGPLAN international conference on Functional programming10.1145/1086365.1086371(27-40)Online publication date: 28-Sep-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1086365.1086371
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Index Terms

The design of a class mechanism for Moby
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language features
        Modules / packages
      2. Language types
        Object oriented languages

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 34, Issue 5

May 1999

304 pages

ISSN:0362-1340

EISSN:1558-1160

DOI:10.1145/301631

Editors:
Barbara G. Ryder
Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ
,
Benjamin G. Zorn
Univ. of Colorado, Boulder
,
A. Michael Berman
Rowan Univ., Glassboro, NJ

Issue’s Table of Contents

PLDI '99: Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 1999 conference on Programming language design and implementation
May 1999
304 pages
ISBN:1581130945
DOI:10.1145/301618
Chairmen:
Barbara G. Ryder
Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ
,
Benjamin G. Zorn
Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, and Microsoft Research

Copyright © 1999 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 May 1999

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 34, Issue 5

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-642-32820-6_6
Ramsey NFisher KGovereau P(2005)An expressive language of signaturesACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/1090189.108637140:9(27-40)Online publication date: 12-Sep-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1090189.1086371
Ramsey NFisher KGovereau PDanvy OPierce B(2005)An expressive language of signaturesProceedings of the tenth ACM SIGPLAN international conference on Functional programming10.1145/1086365.1086371(27-40)Online publication date: 28-Sep-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1086365.1086371
Schirmer N(2004)Analysing the Java package/access concepts in Isabelle/HOLConcurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience10.1002/cpe.80016:7(689-706)Online publication date: 27-Apr-2004
https://doi.org/10.1002/cpe.800
Ancona DZucca E(2001)True Modules for Java-like LanguagesECOOP 2001 — Object-Oriented Programming10.1007/3-540-45337-7_19(354-380)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2001
https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45337-7_19
MacQueen DHarper RReppy J(2020)The history of Standard MLProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/33863364:HOPL(1-100)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2020
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Ingalls D(2020)The evolution of Smalltalk: from Smalltalk-72 through SqueakProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/33863354:HOPL(1-101)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2020
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Syme D(2020)The early history of F#Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/33863254:HOPL(1-58)Online publication date: 12-Jun-2020
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Hulette GSottile MMalony AOstermann KBinder W(2012)Composing typemaps in TwigProceedings of the 11th International Conference on Generative Programming and Component Engineering10.1145/2371401.2371408(41-49)Online publication date: 26-Sep-2012
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