An object-oriented approach to algebra system design

  • Authors:
  • S. K. Abdali;Guy W. Cherry;Neil Soiffer

  • Affiliations:
  • Tektronix, Inc.;Tektronix, Inc.;Tektronix, Inc.

  • Venue:
  • SYMSAC '86 Proceedings of the fifth ACM symposium on Symbolic and algebraic computation
  • Year:
  • 1986

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Abstract

This paper describes a new computer algebra system design based on the object-oriented style of programming and an implementation of this design, called Views, written in Smalltalk-80. The design is similar in goals to other 'new' generation computer algebra systems, by allowing the runtime creation of computational domains and providing a way to view these domains as members of categories such as 'group', 'ring' or 'field'. However, Views introduces several unique features. The most notable is the strong distinction made between a domain and its view as a member of a particular category. This distinction between the implementation of a domain and its adherence to a set of algebraic laws allows a great degree of flexibility when choosing the algebraic structures that are to be active during a computation. It also allows for a richer variety of interrelationships among categories than exhibited in other systems.