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Import is not inheritance why we need both: Modules and classes

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Book cover ECOOP ’92 European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP 1992)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 615))

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Abstract

The design of many popular object-oriented languages like Smalltalk, Eiffel, or Sather follows a certain trend: The class is the only structuring form. In this paper, the need for having modules besides classes is claimed. Modules stem from a different language family and at first glance it seems that they can easily be unified with classes. Among other things, unifying modules and classes carries the danger of unifying the import and inheritance relationships. Constructs in several languages are discussed that indicate that modules and classes should indeed be kept separate.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Computer Systems, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), Switzerland

    Clemens A. Szyperski

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  1. Clemens A. Szyperski
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Ole Lehrmann Madsen

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© 1992 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Szyperski, C.A. (1992). Import is not inheritance why we need both: Modules and classes. In: Madsen, O.L. (eds) ECOOP ’92 European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming. ECOOP 1992. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 615. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0053028

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0053028

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-55668-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-47268-1

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