Predicate dispatching: A unified theory of dispatch

Ernst, M.; Kaplan, Craig S.; Chambers, Craig

doi:10.1007/bfb0054092

Cited by 86 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…While other techniques for declaratively specifying the dependence of object behavior on state do exist, [6,7,11], they are more complex and restricted than dynamic inheritance and method update mechanisms in Self.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Predicate dispatch is thus ideal for capturing behavior that depends on a formula over the state of the object, while the dynamic delegation mechanism in PMD captures behavior changes due on program events more cleanly. More recently, predicate classes have been generalized to a predicate dispatch [7,11] mechanism which unifies object-oriented dispatch with pattern-matching in functional programming languages.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prototypes with Multiple Dispatch: An Expressive and Dynamic Object Model

Salzman

Aldrich

2005

ECOOP 2005 - Object-Oriented Programming

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Abstract. Two object-oriented programming language paradigmsdynamic, prototype-based languages and multi-method languagesprovide orthogonal benefits to software engineers. These two paradigms appear to be in conflict, however, preventing engineers from realizing the benefits of both technologies in one system. This paper introduces a novel object model, prototypes with multiple dispatch (PMD), which seamlessly unifies these two approaches. We give formal semantics for PMD, and discuss implementation and experience with PMD in the dynamically typed programming language Slate. OverviewWe begin the paper by describing a motivating example that shows the limitations of current, popular object-oriented languages for capturing how method behavior depends on the interaction between objects and their state. The example shows that multi-methods can cleanly capture how behavior depends on the interaction between objects, while dynamic, prototype-based languages can cleanly capture how behavior depends on object state. Unfortunately, unifying highly dynamic, prototype-based languages with multi-methods is hard, because traditional multi-methods assume a static class hierarchy that is not present in dynamic prototype-based languages.In section 3 we describe Prototypes with Multiple Dispatch (PMD), an object model that combines the benefits of dynamic, prototype-based languages with multi-methods. PMD supports both paradigms by introducing a role concept that links a slot within an object to a dispatch position on a method, and defining a dynamic multi-method dispatch mechanism that traverses the graph of objects, methods, and roles to find the most specific method implementation for a given set of receiver objects.Section 4 defines the PMD model more precisely using operational semantics. Section 5 demonstrates the expressiveness of PMD through the standard library of Slate, a dynamically-typed language that implements the PMD object model. Section 6 describes an efficient algorithm for implementing dispatch in Slate. Section 7 describes related work, and section 8 concludes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prototypes with Multiple Dispatch: An Expressive and Dynamic Object Model

Salzman

Aldrich

2005

ECOOP 2005 - Object-Oriented Programming

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“…Since the condition might also check the dynamic types of multiple arguments -or any other predicate over them -, it is equally easy to simulate multiple and even predicate-based dispatch [9].…”

Section: Vol 6 No 3 Journal Of Object Technology 127mentioning

confidence: 99%

Open Types and Bidirectional Relationships as an Alternative to Classes and Inheritance.

Heinlein¹

2007

JOT

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Open types are presented as a simple yet powerful data model for statically typed procedural and object-oriented programming languages, that overcomes the limitations of the traditional record-oriented model. The basic idea is to separate type definitions from the definitions of their attributes in order to allow incremental definitions of the latter. Furthermore, bidirectional relationships are introduced as pairs of mutually inverse attributes whose values will be kept consistent automatically. Finally, anonymous and automatic attributes are presented as a simple extension of attributes that unifies the concepts of aggregation, inheritance (including subtype polymorphism), and user-defined type conversions. Since open types do not possess methods in the objectoriented sense, global virtual functions are used as an alternative and more flexible means to define behaviour, while modules are employed to achieve information hiding and type-safe separate compilation. The basic implementation ideas of open types as a language extension for C++ are described.

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“…The branch model described in this paper is directly inspired by Ernst et al's predicate dispatching [EKC98]. In that system, each method has a predicate expression over the argument values, where the predicate expression language allows logical combinations of "is-a" tests or arbitrary test expressions in the base language.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incremental programming with extensible decisions

Orleans

2002

Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Aspect-Oriented Software Development

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This paper proposes a new model of programming, in which the behavior of a program can be defined as separate decision point branches. Allowing more precise expression of the condition determining when a branch should be chosen at a decision point leads to better support for incremental programming. This model can be viewed as a fundamental mechanism underlying both OOP and AOP, which can serve as lower-level building blocks that can be put together into the higher-level constructs present in many AOP systems.

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Predicate dispatching: A unified theory of dispatch

Cited by 86 publications

References 8 publications

Prototypes with Multiple Dispatch: An Expressive and Dynamic Object Model

Prototypes with Multiple Dispatch: An Expressive and Dynamic Object Model

Open Types and Bidirectional Relationships as an Alternative to Classes and Inheritance.

Incremental programming with extensible decisions

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