The Art of the Metaobject Protocol - Hardcover

Kiczales, Gregor

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262111586 ISBN 13: 9780262111584

Publisher: MIT Press, 1991

Synopsis

The CLOS metaobject protocol is a high-performance extension to the CommonLisp Object System. The authors, who developed the metaobject protocol and who were among the group that developed CLOS, introduce this approach to programming language design, describe its evolution and design principles, and present a formal specification of a metaobject protocol for CLOS. The authors show that the "art of metaobject protocol design" lies in creating a synthetic combination of object-orientated and reflective techniques that can be applied under existing software engineering considerations to yield a new approach to programming language design that meets a broad set of design criteria. One of the major benefits of including the metaobject protocol in programming languages is that it allows users to adjust the language to better suit their needs. Metaobject protocols also disprove the adage that adding more flexibility to a programming language reduces its performance. In presenting the principles of metaobject protocols, the authors work with actual code for a simplified implementation of CLOS and its reader to gain hands-on experience with the design process. They also include a number of exercises that address important concerns and open issues.

About this title

From the Back Cover

This book presents a new approach to programming language design, which resolves fundamental tensions between elegance and efficiency.

About the Author

Jim des Rivieres is a Member of the Research Staff in the System Sciences Laboratory at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0262111586
• ISBN 13: 9780262111584
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 348