Talents: dynamically composable units of reuse

  • Authors:

  • Jorge Ressia;Tudor Gîrba;Oscar Nierstrasz;Fabrizio Perin;Lukas Renggli

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Bern, Switzerland;University of Bern, Switzerland;University of Bern, Switzerland;University of Bern, Switzerland;University of Bern, Switzerland

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

Reuse in object-oriented languages typically focuses on inheritance. Numerous techniques have been developed to provide finer-grained reuse of methods, such as flavors, mixins and traits. These techniques, however, only deal with reuse at the level of classes. Class-based reuse is inherently static. Increasing use of reflection and meta-programming techniques in real world applications underline the need for more dynamic approaches. New approaches have shifted to object-specific reuse. However, these techniques fail to provide a complete solution to the composition issues arising during reuse. We propose a new approach that deals with reuse at the object level and that supports behavioral composition. We introduce a new abstraction called a talent which models features that are shared between objects of different class hierarchies. Talents provide a composition mechanism that is as flexible as that of traits but which is dynamic.