800 research outputs found
The C Object System: Using C as a High-Level Object-Oriented Language
The C Object System (Cos) is a small C library which implements high-level
concepts available in Clos, Objc and other object-oriented programming
languages: uniform object model (class, meta-class and property-metaclass),
generic functions, multi-methods, delegation, properties, exceptions, contracts
and closures. Cos relies on the programmable capabilities of the C programming
language to extend its syntax and to implement the aforementioned concepts as
first-class objects. Cos aims at satisfying several general principles like
simplicity, extensibility, reusability, efficiency and portability which are
rarely met in a single programming language. Its design is tuned to provide
efficient and portable implementation of message multi-dispatch and message
multi-forwarding which are the heart of code extensibility and reusability.
With COS features in hand, software should become as flexible and extensible as
with scripting languages and as efficient and portable as expected with C
programming. Likewise, Cos concepts should significantly simplify adaptive and
aspect-oriented programming as well as distributed and service-oriented
computingComment: 18
Array operators using multiple dispatch: a design methodology for array implementations in dynamic languages
Arrays are such a rich and fundamental data type that they tend to be built
into a language, either in the compiler or in a large low-level library.
Defining this functionality at the user level instead provides greater
flexibility for application domains not envisioned by the language designer.
Only a few languages, such as C++ and Haskell, provide the necessary power to
define -dimensional arrays, but these systems rely on compile-time
abstraction, sacrificing some flexibility. In contrast, dynamic languages make
it straightforward for the user to define any behavior they might want, but at
the possible expense of performance.
As part of the Julia language project, we have developed an approach that
yields a novel trade-off between flexibility and compile-time analysis. The
core abstraction we use is multiple dispatch. We have come to believe that
while multiple dispatch has not been especially popular in most kinds of
programming, technical computing is its killer application. By expressing key
functions such as array indexing using multi-method signatures, a surprising
range of behaviors can be obtained, in a way that is both relatively easy to
write and amenable to compiler analysis. The compact factoring of concerns
provided by these methods makes it easier for user-defined types to behave
consistently with types in the standard library.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, workshop paper for the ARRAY '14 workshop, June
11, 2014, Edinburgh, United Kingdo
Dynamic Virtual Join Point Dispatch
Conceptually, join points are points in the execution of a program and advice is late-bound to them. We propose the notion of virtual join points that makes this concept explicit not only at a conceptual, but also at implementation level. In current implementations of aspect-oriented languages, binding is performed early, at deploy-time, and only a limited residual dispatch is executed. Current implementations fall in the categories of modifying the application code, modifying the meta-level of an application, or interacting with the application by means of eventsâthe latter two already realizing virtual join points to some degree. We provide an implementation of an aspect-oriented execution environment that supports truly virtual join points and discuss how this approach also favors optimizations in the execution environment
Efficient Dispatch of Multi-object Polymorphic Call Sites in Contextual Role-Oriented Programming Languages
Adaptive software becomes more and more important as computing is increasingly context-dependent. Runtime adaptability can be achieved by dynamically selecting and applying context-specific code. Role-oriented programming has been proposed as a paradigm to enable runtime adaptive software by design. Roles change the objectsâ behavior at runtime, thus adapting the software to a given context. The cost of adaptivity is however a high runtime overhead stemming from executing compositions of behavior-modifying code. It has been shown that the overhead can be reduced by optimizing dispatch plans at runtime when contexts do not change, but no method exists to reduce the overhead in cases with high context variability. This paper presents a novel approach to implement polymorphic role dispatch, taking advantage of run-time information to effectively guard abstractions and enable reuse even in the presence of variable contexts. The concept of polymorphic inline caches is extended to role invocations. We evaluate the implementation with a benchmark for role-oriented programming languages achieving a geometric mean speedup of 4.0Ă (3.8Ă up to 4.5Ă) with static contexts, and close to no overhead in the case of varying contexts over the current implementation of contextual roles in Object Team
Julia: A Fresh Approach to Numerical Computing
Bridging cultures that have often been distant, Julia combines expertise from
the diverse fields of computer science and computational science to create a
new approach to numerical computing. Julia is designed to be easy and fast.
Julia questions notions generally held as "laws of nature" by practitioners of
numerical computing:
1. High-level dynamic programs have to be slow.
2. One must prototype in one language and then rewrite in another language
for speed or deployment, and
3. There are parts of a system for the programmer, and other parts best left
untouched as they are built by the experts.
We introduce the Julia programming language and its design --- a dance
between specialization and abstraction. Specialization allows for custom
treatment. Multiple dispatch, a technique from computer science, picks the
right algorithm for the right circumstance. Abstraction, what good computation
is really about, recognizes what remains the same after differences are
stripped away. Abstractions in mathematics are captured as code through another
technique from computer science, generic programming.
Julia shows that one can have machine performance without sacrificing human
convenience.Comment: 37 page
Multimethods and separate static typechecking in a language with C++-like object model
The goal of this paper is the description and analysis of multimethod
implementation in a new object-oriented, class-based programming language
called OOLANG. The implementation of the multimethod typecheck and selection,
deeply analyzed in the paper, is performed in two phases in order to allow
static typechecking and separate compilation of modules. The first phase is
performed at compile time, while the second is executed at link time and does
not require the modules' source code. OOLANG has syntax similar to C++; the
main differences are the absence of pointers and the realization of
polymorphism through subsumption. It adopts the C++ object model and supports
multiple inheritance as well as virtual base classes. For this reason, it has
been necessary to define techniques for realigning argument and return value
addresses when performing multimethod invocations.Comment: 15 pages, 18 figure
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