A Lambda Calculus of incomplete objects

Viviana Bono (1) , Michele Bugliesi (2) , Luigi Liquori (1, 3)

1 Dipartimento di Informatica [Torino]
2 Dipartimento di Matematica [padova]
3 LOGNET - Logical Networks: Self-organizing Overlay Networks and Programmable Overlay Computing Systems

This paper extends the Lambda Calculus of Objects as proposed in [5] with a new support for incomplete objects. Incomplete objects behave operationally as " standard " objects; their typing, instead, is different, as they may be typed even though they contain references to methods that are yet to be added. As a byproduct, incomplete objects may be typed independently of the order of their methods and, consequently, the operational semantics of the untyped calculus may be soundly defined relying on a permutation rule that treats objects as sets of methods. The new type system is a conservative extension of the system of [5] that retains the mytype specialization property for inherited methods peculiar to [5], as well as the ability to statically detect run-time errors such as message not understood.

Domaines: Informatique et langage [cs.CL]; Logique en informatique [cs.LO]

Viviana Bono, Michele Bugliesi, Luigi Liquori. A Lambda Calculus of incomplete objects. Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science 1996. 21st International Symposium, MFCS'96 Cracow, Poland, September 2–6, 1996 Proceedings, Sep 1996, Cracow, Poland. pp.218-229, ⟨10.1007/3-540-61550-4_150⟩. ⟨hal-01156555⟩