• Mark Evans (9/9) Feb 26 2003 http://pauillac.inria.fr/~remy/work/virtual/virtual.html
• Mark Evans (1/1) Feb 26 2003 P.S. Article touches on the Pizza (Kiev?) Java extensions in the bargai...
• Bill Cox (13/25) Feb 27 2003 Interesting paper. It seems to show the equivalence of virtual types,

Mark Evans <Mark_member pathlink.com> writes:

http://pauillac.inria.fr/~remy/work/virtual/virtual.html

Abstract: We show, mostly through detailed examples, that object-oriented
programming patterns known to involve the notion of virtual types can be
implemented directly and concisely using parametric polymorphism. A significant
improvement we make over previous approaches is to allow related classes to be
defined independently. This solution is more flexible, more general, and we
believe, simpler than other type-safe solutions previously proposed. This
approach can be applied to several languages with parametric polymorphism that
can already type binary methods and have structural object types.

Mark Evans <Mark_member pathlink.com> writes:

P.S.  Article touches on the Pizza (Kiev?) Java extensions in the bargain.  -M.

Bill Cox <bill viasic.com> writes:

Interesting paper.  It seems to show the equivalence of virtual types, 
template frameworks, etc.

They conclude that with some minor extensions to a language that has 
templates, you get the power of virtual classes or template frameworks, 
so long as you are willing to de-couple classes to the point that they 
are not mutually recursive.  That sounds really scary to me.  A simple 
graph is mutually recursive.  The systems I work with have litterally a 
hundred massively recursive classes.

The neat thing about template frameworks (or virtual classes) is that 
they produce highly efficient code, and they enable code reuse that 
otherwise is hard to do in languages like C++ and Java.

I think it's a great candidate for D.

Mark Evans wrote:
 http://pauillac.inria.fr/~remy/work/virtual/virtual.html
 
 Abstract: We show, mostly through detailed examples, that object-oriented
 programming patterns known to involve the notion of virtual types can be
 implemented directly and concisely using parametric polymorphism. A significant
 improvement we make over previous approaches is to allow related classes to be
 defined independently. This solution is more flexible, more general, and we
 believe, simpler than other type-safe solutions previously proposed. This
 approach can be applied to several languages with parametric polymorphism that
 can already type binary methods and have structural object types.