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European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming

ECOOP 1993: ECOOP’ 93 — Object-Oriented Programming pp 502–527Cite as

MetaFlex: A Flexible Metaclass Generator

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 707))

Abstract

Motivated to support the needs of component-based applications, we have developed a system called MetaFlex that generates metaclasses to extend the behavior of our C++ classes without inventing variants of the original classes. We make the case that a flexible metaclass generator service that allows developers to freely choose the kind and degree of detail for each metaclass is needed and present our architecture for making this specification. We also illustrate a powerful use of this technique with a scripting extension to our application framework. With an evaluation of our current MetaFlex implementation and its use with the scripting extension, we conclude that this service is best provided by compiler vendors.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aldus Corporation, 411 First Avenue South, Seattle, WA, 98104-2871, USA

    Richard Johnson & Murugappan Palaniappan

Authors
  1. Richard Johnson
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  2. Murugappan Palaniappan
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre Universitaire d’Informatique, Université de Genève, 24, rue Général-Dufour, CH-1211, Genève 4, Switzerland

    Oscar M. Nierstrasz

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© 1993 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Johnson, R., Palaniappan, M. (1993). MetaFlex: A Flexible Metaclass Generator. In: Nierstrasz, O.M. (eds) ECOOP’ 93 — Object-Oriented Programming. ECOOP 1993. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 707. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-47910-4_25

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-47910-4_25

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-57120-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-47910-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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