Open AccessDynamically Extensible Objects in a Class-Based Language
Author(s) -
Rene Wenzel Schmidt
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
daimi pb
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2245-9316
pISSN - 0105-8517
DOI - 10.7146/dpb.v25i504.7033
Subject(s) - computer science , programming language , implementation , extensibility , object oriented programming , class (philosophy) , type safety , data type , code (set theory) , artificial intelligence , set (abstract data type)
Object-oriented programming techniques allow the construction of reusable and extensible code. However, class-based languages have poor support for implementing type-orthogonal behaviour and extending nonleaf classes, which result in implementations with poor performance or limited functionality. This paper presents dynamic slots, a mechanism used to build efficient implementations of type-orthogonal abstractions. Dynamic slots can be statically type-checked and have been integrated into the BETA programming language. Measurements of a persistent store show that they significantly improve performance.