Object-oriented programming originated with the Simula language developed by Kristen Nygaard in Oslo in the 1960s. Now, from the birthplace of OOP, comes the new BETA programming language, for which this book is both tutorial and reference. It provides a clear introduction to the basic concepts of OOP and to more advanced topics.

Once a radical notion, object-oriented programming is one of today's most active research areas. It is especially well suited to the design of very large software projects involving many programmers all working on the same project. The original contributions in this book will provide researchers and students in programming languages, databases, and programming semantics with the most complete survey of the field available. Broad in scope and deep in its examination of substantive issues, the book focuses on the major topics of object-oriented languages, models of computation, mathematical models, object-oriented databases, and object-oriented environments. The object-oriented languages include Beta, the Scandinavian successor to Simula (a chapter by Bent Kristensen, whose group has had the longest experience with object-oriented programming, reveals how that experience has shaped the group's vision today); CommonObjects, a Lisp-based language with abstraction; Actors, a low-level language for concurrent modularity; and Vulcan, a Prolog-based concurrent object-oriented language. New computational models of inheritance, composite objects, block-structure layered systems, and classification are covered, and theoretical papers on functional object-oriented languages and object-oriented specification are included in the section on mathematical models. The three chapters on object-oriented databases (including David Maier's "Development and Implementation of an Object-Oriented Database Management System," which spans the programming and database worlds by integrating procedural and representational capability and the requirements of multi-user persistent storage) and the two chapters on object-oriented environments provide a representative sample of good research in these two important areas. Bruce Shriver is a researcher at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Peter Wegner is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at Brown University. Research Directions in Object-Oriented Programmingis included in the Computer Systems series, edited by Herb Schwetman.

This volume presents the results of extensive research into object-orientation including object-oriented design, implementation, languages, and environments. The focus of the book has been to develop and promote object-oriented techniques into industry, leading to prototype evaluations, product development and the commercial development of OSDL tools.

Object-oriented programming is a popular buzzword these days. What is the reason for this popularity? Is object-oriented programming the solution to the software crisis or is it just a fad? Is it a simple evolutionary step or a radical change in software methodology? What is the central idea behind object-orien ted design? Are there special applications for which object-oriented program ming is particularly suited? Which object-oriented language should be used? There is no simple answer to these questions. Although object-oriented programming was invented more than twenty years ago, we still cannot claim that we know everything about this programming technique. Many new con cepts have been developed during the past decade, and new applications and implications of object-oriented programming are constantly being discovered. This book can only try to explain the nature of object-oriented program ming in as much detail as possible. It should serve three purposes. First, it is intended as an introduction to the basic concepts of object-oriented program ming. Second, the book describes the concept of prototypes and explains why and how they can improve the way in which object-oriented programs are developed. Third, it introduces the programming language Omega, an object oriented language that was designed with easy, safe and efficient software development in mind.

It is now more than twenty-five years since object-oriented programming was “inve- ed” (actually, more than thirty years since work on Simula started), but, by all accounts, it would appear as if object-oriented technology has only been “discovered” in the past ten years! When the first European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming was held in Paris in 1987, I think it was generally assumed that Object-Oriented Progr- ming, like Structured Programming, would quickly enter the vernacular, and that a c- ference on the subject would rapidly become superfluous. On the contrary, the range and impact of object-oriented approaches and methods continues to expand, and, - spite the inevitable oversell and hype, object-oriented technology has reached a level of scientific maturity that few could have foreseen ten years ago. Object-oriented technology also cuts across scientific cultural boundaries like p- haps no other field of computer science, as object-oriented concepts can be applied to virtually all the other areas and affect virtually all aspects of the software life cycle. (So, in retrospect, emphasizing just Programming in the name of the conference was perhaps somewhat short-sighted, but at least the acronym is pronounceable and easy to rem- ber!) This year’s ECOOP attracted 146 submissions from around the world - making the selection process even tougher than usual. The selected papers range in topic from programming language and database issues to analysis and design and reuse, and from experience reports to theoretical contributions.

A comprehensive undergraduate textbook covering both theory and practical design issues, with an emphasis on object-oriented languages.

This ground-breaking book presents a complete methodology for adaptive programming in any object-oriented programming language. Lieberherr's adaptive method signals a new approach to object-oriented program design that goes beyond object encapsulation and hard-coded navigation paths to achieve more flexible interactions among objects. Programmers using this method work at a higher, schematic level of abstraction; graph notation represents the class structure and a "propagation pattern" language tells how to distribute meaningful methods - including navigation - across the structure. Using this method, programmers can easily adapt and modify programs as they evolve. This book can be used with any object-oriented programming environment, or with the Demeter Tools Version 5.5, a complete, professional software system for creating and maintaining adaptive programs.