A Description and Evaluation of PARAGON's Type Hierarchies for Data Abstraction
Abstract
The goals of Paragon can be grouped into three broad classes: abstract data type specification goals, abstract data type representation goals and automatic-processing goals. The paper demonstrates how a type hierarchy [Technically, a directed acyclic graph of types, but type hierarchy is a more commonly used term.] can be used for writing programs using the object-manager model to specify abstractions, refine the specifications, write representations for the abstractions and combine representations as desired. These capabilities are not available in current languages, so the Paragon design shows how type hierarchies can be used in new language designs. A number of programs were written and translated with a prototype system that processes Paragon, thus the suggested language is not a mere paper design, but a complete language that can be implemented and used for programming. However, its age in a rapidly advancing field is showing, and a significant redesign would be required to be used as a production system.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA461110
Entities
People
- Mark Sherman
Organizations
- Carnegie Mellon University