Ph.D. thesis, Computer Science, Université Montpellier II, apr. 1998.

Examination:

on April 4, 1998 with the examining board including:
M.	Roland	DUCOURNAU	Professor, UM2 LIRMM Montpellier	Foreman
M.	Jean-Pierre	BRIOT	Research Associate, CNRS LIP6 Paris	Reporter
M.	Bernard	CARRÉ	Assistant Professor, USTL LIFL Lille	Examiner
M.	Christophe	DONY	Assistant Professor, UM2 LIRMM Montpellier	Supervisor
M.	Jacques	FERBER	Professor, UM2 LIRMM Montpellier	Examiner
Mme	Thérèse	LIBOUREL	Assistant Professor, CNAM LIRMM Montpellier	Examiner
M.	Jacques	MALENFANT	Professor, UBS VALORIA Vannes	Examiner
M.	Joël	QUINQUETON	Research Director, INRIA LIRMM Montpellier	Director
and according to the report by:
M.	Jean-Marc	GEIB	Professor, USTL LIFL Lille	Reporter

Abstract:

Appearing in the late 1980s, prototype-based languages have been proposed as an alternative to class-based languages in the field of object-oriented programming.
A study of those new languages, guided by the study of their primitive mechanisms (cloning and delegation), is presented in Part One. The characterization of the sharing entailed by those mechanisms application allows to differentiate between cloning and delegation, and between delegation and class-inheritance. It improves the understanding of prototype-based programming in which several problems are identified. To take these problems and the sharing notion into account leads to the proposal of a new taxonomy for prototype-based languages.
Part Two of the thesis is dedicated to the ability to use the sharing entailed by the delegation mechanism in order to represent entities from several viewpoints.  Split objects are proposed to this end and they are compared to the most significant works which have been carried out on the viewpoint notion in computer science. Proposals are done to integrate split objects in a prototype-based language or a class-based language. 

Keywords: object-oriented programming, prototypes, inheritance, delegation, sharing, multiple representation, viewpoint, split objects.

BibTex reference: 

@PhdThesis{Bard98a,
author = {Daniel Bardou},
title = {{\'Etude des langages \`a prototypes, du m\'ecanisme de d\'el\'egation, et de son rapport \`a la notion de point de vue}},
school = {Universit\'e Montpellier 2},
year = 1998,
type = {Th\`ese de Doctorat, sp\'ecialit\'e Informatique},
month = apr
}

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