On the Role of Language Constructs for Framework Design Design. Abstract

On the Role of Language Constructs for Framework Design

G. Hedin, J. L. Knudsen

To appear in ACM Computing Surveys, Symposium on Object-Oriented Application Frameworks

Abstract

The relationship between framework design and language constructs are discussed for two reasons: firstly, designing frameworks requires the ability to give the framework designer precise control over aspects of the framework extensions; secondly, the framework constraints should be specified such that they are statically checkable. Four existing language constructs are discussed: generalized block structure, generalized inheritance, generalized virtuality, and singular objects. It is discussed how these language constructs give precise means for controlling the framework extensions in statically checkable ways.

Please note

A longer version of this paper will appear in the book Implementing Application Frameworks: Object-Oriented Frameworks at Work [Abstract (html)].