SNOOPS: An object-oriented language enhancement supporting dynamic program reconfiguration

  • Authors:

  • Noel Craske

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Technology, Monash University, Caulfield Campus, PO Box 197, Caulfield East, Australia, Victoria, 3145

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGPLAN Notices
  • Year:
  • 1991

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Abstract

The OOP paradigm developed from a desire to provide an environment within which data and procedures could be easily represented homogeneously. The OOPLs developed under this paradigm achieved the goal by representing everything using the same basic structure called an object.All OOPLs provide the ability to define objects, classes, and to manipulate them. However, they do not provide a means for introducing newly created classes of objects and previously existing classes without editing the methods on those objects. SNOOPS, an extension to the Scheme Object System --- SCOOPs, was developed to provide this facility as part of a language [Craske, 1988]. Initial research was aimed at developing an ITS that had the ability to select dynamically an appropriate Student Model, Tutor Model, Interface and lesson structure as determined by the interaction with individual students [Craske and Richards, 1988a, 1988b]. It soon became apparent that managing the complexity of the system required a means to simplify the addition of new objects. Our approach was to let the software itself assume responsibility for its' own structure by creating Intelligent Manager Objects (meta-objects). Instances Manager had the ability to redirect messages to any object, including instances of newly created classes. Thus maintenance in a system built from SNOOPS is centred on instances of class Manager.