Foundations of Object-Oriented Languages: Types and Semantics

by Kim B. Bruce

In recent years, object-oriented programming has emerged as the dominant computer programming style, and object-oriented languages such as C++ and Java enjoy wide use in academia and industry. This text explores the formal underpinnings of object-oriented languages to help the reader understand the fundamental concepts of these languages and the design decisions behind them.The text begins by analyzing existing object-oriented languages, paying special attention to their type systems and impediments to expressiveness. It then examines two key subtypes and subclasses. After a brief introduction to the lambda calculus, it presents a prototypical object-oriented language, SOOL, with a simple type system similar to those of class-based object-oriented languages in common use. The text offers proof that the type system is sound by showing that the semantics preserves typing information. It concludes with a discussion of desirable features, such as parametric polymorphism and a MyType construct, that are not yet included in most statically typed object-oriented languages.

Genres: Computer Science

406 pages, Unknown Binding

First published March 1, 2002

Reviews

[Ushan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a survey of object-oriented programming languages (like Java and Eiffel but not like UW's Cecil). It is surprisingly hard to make the polymorphism facility in the language both useful and safe (for example, Eiffel's, as originally formulated, is useful but unsafe; the problem was realized late in the game). Bruce shows how to do it, and he has written papers on adding such a facility to Java, but to me it seems contrived.

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