Predicated generic functions: enabling context-dependent method dispatch

  • Authors:
  • Jorge Vallejos;Sebastián González;Pascal Costanza;Wolfgang De Meuter;Theo D'Hondt;Kim Mens

  • Affiliations:
  • Software Languages Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium;Département d'ingénierie informatique, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium;Software Languages Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium;Software Languages Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium;Software Languages Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium;Département d'ingénierie informatique, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

  • Venue:
  • SC'10 Proceedings of the 9th international conference on Software composition
  • Year:
  • 2010

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

This paper presents predicated generic functions, a novel programming language abstraction that allows the expression of context-dependent behaviour in a declarative and modular manner, providing fine-grained control ofmethod applicability and method specificity. Methods are guarded by predicates with user-defined orderings, thereby increasing the expressiveness of existing method dispatching approaches. We have prototyped our proposal in Lambic, an extension of the standard Common Lisp Object System. We illustrate and motivate our approach by discussing the implementation of a collaborative graphical editor.