From: billwolf@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,)
Subject: Re: Procedural variables, abstraction mechanisms, ADTs
Date: 28 Dec 88 06:30:57 GMT [thread overview]
Message-ID: <3987@hubcap.UUCP> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 5696@medusa.cs.purdue.edu
From article <5696@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, by rjh@cs.purdue.edu (Bob Hathaway):
>
> For yet another Ada 9X extension, I propose procedural variables.
This proposal has been given detailed consideration in Chapter 4 of
"Abstraction Mechanisms and Language Design", an ACM Distinguished
Dissertation by Paul N. Hilfinger. Hilfinger was a member of the
Ada design team (see the Foreword in your LRM), and Chapter 4 is
concerned with ways in which the abstraction mechanisms in current
Ada can be strengthened even further. It's published in book form
by the MIT Press, and should be available in the Purdue library.
Another book I would strongly recommend to anyone interested in
abstraction and programming languages is "Concurrency and Programming
Languages", by David Harland. Harland spends 2/3 of the book discussing
*abstraction* and programming languages, and eventually does get around
to actually discussing concurrency in Chapter 3. Harland drives home
the point that the default must be to maximize expressivity, and the
burden of proof must fall upon those who argue that certain forms of
abstraction must not be permitted. Although I believe that such an
argument can be made successfully in certain cases, whereas Harland
apparently does not, the book is nevertheless a very powerful argument
in favor of "unfettered abstraction", and it will certainly make you
think. Harland also takes on Lisp and the functional programming
languages; his comments are very terse, and quite devastating. This
book is relatively small, but its intellectual content is tremendous.
It's definitely a book you'll want to reserve several weekends for.
For a more practical look at abstract data types, Grady Booch's
"Software Components with Ada" is a classic. I also like Booch's
definition of object-oriented programming, which essentially states
that OOP is the practice of applying ADTs in a sensible manner.
Bill Wolfe
wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu
prev parent reply other threads:[~1988-12-28 6:30 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 6+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1988-12-26 23:37 Garbage Collection Erland Sommarskog
1988-12-27 21:24 ` William Thomas Wolfe,2847,
1988-12-28 16:09 ` Snorri Agnarsson
1988-12-30 0:46 ` Bill Wolfe
1988-12-27 22:24 ` Bob Hathaway
1988-12-28 6:30 ` William Thomas Wolfe,2847, [this message]
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