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J&: nested intersection for scalable software composition

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OOPSLA '06: Proceedings of the 21st annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming systems, languages, and applications

Pages 21 - 36

https://doi.org/10.1145/1167473.1167476

Published: 16 October 2006 Publication History

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Abstract

This paper introduces a programming language that makes it convenient to compose large software systems, combining their features in a modular way. J& supports nested intersection, building on earlier work on nested inheritance in the language Jx. Nested inheritance permits modular, type-safe extension of a package (including nested packages and classes), while preserving existing type relationships. Nested intersection enables composition and extension of two or more packages, combining their types and behavior while resolving conflicts with a relatively small amount of code. The utility of J& is demonstrated by using it to construct two composable, extensible frameworks: a compiler framework for Java, and a peer-to-peer networking system. Both frameworks support composition of extensions. For example, two compilers adding different, domain-specific features to Java can be composed to obtain a compiler for a language that supports both sets of features.

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Ye WSun YOliveira B(2024)Imperative Compositional Programming: Type Sound Distributive Intersection Subtyping with References via Bidirectional TypingProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36897828:OOPSLA2(2010-2039)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2024
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Index Terms

J&: nested intersection for scalable software composition
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language features
        Classes and objects
        Frameworks
        Inheritance
        Modules / packages
      2. Language types
        Object oriented languages

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J&: nested intersection for scalable software composition
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Reviews

Reviewer: R. Clayton

How can Java packages be modified to better support large-scale software development__?__ The authors offer nested inheritance and nested intersection as suitable modifications. An earlier paper covered nested inheritance [1]; this paper covers nested intersection. Nested inheritance treats packages as a particular kind of class, and defines what it means to establish subclass-superclass relations among packages. Because packages can represent system components, establishing class relations among them creates framework hierarchies related by inheritance and overriding. Nested intersection extends nested inheritance by composing separate packages; because the hierarchies associated with each package are also composed, nested intersection represents a kind of multiple inheritance. After motivating and describing objectives, the paper briefly presents nested inheritance and the improvements to it provided by nested intersection. Section 3 presents J&, an extension the Jx language to include nested intersection; Jx is Java extended to include nested inheritance [1]. Section 5 briefly covers the J& implementation, and sections 4 and 6 present practice and experience with J&, principally involving compilers and a framework for developing peer-to-peer systems. This is a difficult paper. The authors' experience with the Polyglot Java extension system [2] has significant influence on the problems and solutions dealt with in this paper. Without such experience, the reader must rely on sophisticated technical speculation, which reduces the potential audience for this paper, and risks misinterpreting the authors' intent.

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Published In

OOPSLA '06: Proceedings of the 21st annual ACM SIGPLAN conference on Object-oriented programming systems, languages, and applications

October 2006

514 pages

ISBN:1595933484

DOI:10.1145/1167473

General Chair:
Peri Tarr
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, USA
,
Program Chairs:
William R. Cook
University of Texas at Austin, USA
,
Robert Biddle
Carleton University, Canada
,
Richard P. Gabriel
Sun Microsystems Laboratories

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 41, Issue 10
Proceedings of the 2006 OOPSLA Conference
October 2006
480 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/1167515
Issue’s Table of Contents

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 16 October 2006

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689782
Zhang YMyers A(2017)Familia: unifying interfaces, type classes, and family polymorphismProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/31338941:OOPSLA(1-31)Online publication date: 12-Oct-2017
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Saito CIgarashi A(2013)Matching MyType to subtypingScience of Computer Programming10.1016/j.scico.2012.12.01078:7(933-952)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2013
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