Object reuse and behavior adaptation in Java-like languages

Abstract

Inheritance, which is a basic mechanism in mainstream objectoriented languages, introduces a strong coupling which limits modularity and code reuse. Furthermore, static class hierarchies cannot easily deal with unpredictable dynamic adaptations of the object behavior. In order to overcome these limitations, we propose new linguistic constructs for composing objects in a Java-like language. Objects are intended as featherweight components which can be used in multiple compositions, and object types specify not only the implemented functionalities, but also the required methods, which will be provided by other components during composition. Thus the language supports flexible object reuse and adaptation of the object behavior at run time. The static type discipline guarantees that method calls on well-typed object compositions are safe.

Modeling adaptation with a tuple-based coordination language

“…In [16] the authors review the adaptation capabilities of traditional programming languages and paradigms. For example, considering object-oriented languages, as today's most used ones for software programming, their analysis shows that class inheritance and method overriding offer some degree of adaptiveness, although the mechanism usually is not dynamic (a notable exception is [6], which presents a Javalike core language using dynamic object composition and 'horizontal' method overriding through delegation). New programming techniques, however, have captured more attention in the years.…”

Modeling adaptation with Klaim

“…In [19] the authors review the adaptation capabilities of traditional programming languages and paradigms. For example, considering object-oriented languages, as today's most used ones for software programming, their analysis shows that class inheritance and method overriding offer some degree of adaptiveness although these mechanisms are not usually dynamic (a notable exception is [8], which presents a Java-like core language using dynamic object composition and 'horizontal' method overriding through delegation). New programming techniques, however, have captured more attention in the years.…”