Abstraction mechanisms in CLU

Authors:
Barbara Liskov;Alan Snyder;Russell Atkinson;Craig Schaffert
Affiliations:
Laboratory for Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA;Laboratory for Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA;Laboratory for Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA;Laboratory for Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA
Venue:
Proceedings of an ACM conference on Language design for reliable software
Year:
1977

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Abstract

CLU is a new programming language designed to support the use of abstractions in program construction. Work in programming methodology has led to the realization that three kinds of abstractions, procedural, control, and especially data abstractions, are useful in the programming process. Of these, only the procedural abstraction is supported well by conventional languages, through the procedure or subroutine. CLU provides, in addition to procedures, novel linguistic mechanisms that support the use of data and control abstractions. This paper provides an introduction to the abstraction mechanisms in CLU. By means of programming examples, we illustrate the utility of the three kinds of abstractions in program construction and show how CLU programs may be written to use and implement abstractions. We also discuss the CLU library, which permits incremental program development with complete type-checking performed at compile-time.