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Unifying nominal and structural typing

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Abstract

In this article, I argue for a typing scheme for modeling that unifies the hitherto separated approaches of nominal and structural typing. Both these approaches have their respective advantages and disadvantages, and I suggest a unifying approach that provides one with the best of both worlds on demand. The ultimate goal is to make a contribution toward removing the gulf currently running through the modeling community that is created by the differences between explanatory and constructive modeling with their dependence on structural and nominal typing, respectively. To this end, I first characterize the typing disciplines underlying these different schools of thought, then identify their respective trade-offs, subsequently observe what aspects of these rather different typing approaches are compatible with each other and which are inherently incompatible, and finally propose a scheme that supports fluid transitioning between the approaches.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Colin Atkinson and the anonymous reviewers of the ACM/IEEE 19th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems for their highly valuable feedback on a previous version of this article. Debates with Colin Aktinson helped sharpen some of the ideas presented in this article and significantly informed their presentation. The anonymous reviewers provided very helpful pointers, including suggestions for application areas. Finally, I would like to thank SoSyM’s anonymous reviewers whose thoughtful questions and comments further improved the presentation of this article.

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  1. Victoria University of Wellington, P. O. Box 600, Wellington, 6140, New Zealand

    Thomas Kühne

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  1. Thomas Kühne
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Correspondence to Thomas Kühne.

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Communicated by Dr. Jörg Kienzle and Alexander Pretschner.

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Kühne, T. Unifying nominal and structural typing. Softw Syst Model 18, 1683–1697 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-018-0660-y

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