Re: Abstract Data Types (and a question)

[Xavier Nicollin <Xavier.Nicollin@imag.fr>]

robinsoj@my-dejanews.com wrote:

> I was reading about Ada's Abstract Data Types in Feldman and Koffman's
> book and it reminded me of Object Oriented Programming.  Am I
> corrected is assuming there are similarities between Abstract Data
> Types and OOP?  If so, what are the similarities?

The following paper might be of interest:
 
William R. Cook
``Object-Oriented Programming versus Abstract Data Types''
REX School/Workshop on ``Foundations of O.O. languages'' (1990), 
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) 489, Springer Verlag, 1991

I don't have it at hand, but I remember it compares the two approaches
wrt extension possibilities.

By the way, I have a syntactic question about the parsing of the
expression ``Abstract Data Type'': should it be undertood as
``(Abstract Data) Type'' or as ``Abstract (Data Type)''. In other words,
which one is abstract, the data or the type? My preference goes to the
``data are abstract'' version, but (AFAIK), almost everyone in the
francophone world uses the ``type is abstract'' version, i.e. they write
``Type abstrait de donnees'' instead of ``Type de donnees abstraites''.
You lucky english-speaking people with your postfix syntax don't have to
worry about this somehow pedantic question!


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| Xavier NICOLLIN (mailto:Xavier.Nicollin@imag.fr), INPG (ENSIMAG)
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