Detail

Programming Language Support for Components in .NET

Although the general concept of “software component” seems close to the familiar notion of (first-class) module, and extensive efforts have been placed on the development of sophisticated module systems for (mainly functional) programming languages, the need to address the particular requirements of modern component-based systems is now becoming more evident, due to the widespread availability of platforms providing runtime support for “components”, for instance, the JVM and the Microsoft .NET CLR.

Currently, our system is targeted to the JVM, an early choice made in order to have a degree of interoperatibility. However, the bias of the JVM towards the Java language induces some implementation difficulties, due to the strictness of the underlying Java type system, for instance, when translating parametric polymorphism and handling structural type equivalence. This project aims at retargeting the our system towards the .NET CLR. This will hopefully allow us to benefit from several relevant features of the platform, namely its language-independence, the native support provided for delegates, boxing, and its extensible type system.
Although the general concept of “software component” seems close to the familiar notion of (first-class) module, and extensive efforts have been placed on the development of sophisticated module systems for (mainly functional) programming languages (see [1]), the need to address the particular requirements of modern component-based systems is now becoming more evident, due to the widespread availability of platforms providing runtime support for “components”, for instance, the JVM and the Microsoft .NET CLR.

Currently, our system is targeted to the JVM, an early choice made in order to have a degree of interoperatibility. However, the bias of the JVM towards the Java language induces some implementation difficulties, due to the strictness of the underlying Java type system, for instance, when translating parametric polymorphism and handling structural type equivalence. This project aims at retargeting the our system towards the .NET CLR. This will hopefully allow us to benefit from several relevant features of the platform, namely its language-independence, the native support provided for delegates, boxing, and its extensible type system.