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Title Mirror-based Reflection in AmbientTalk
Authors Stijn Mostinckx, Tom Van Cutsem, Stijn Timbermont, Elisa Gonzalez Boix, Éric Tanter, Wolfgang De Meuter
Publication date May 2009
Abstract This paper introduces a novel mechanism to perform intercession (a form of
reflection) in an object-oriented programming language with the goal of making
the language extensible from within itself. The proposed mechanism builds upon
a mirror-based architecture, leading to a reusable reflective application
programming interface that cleanly separates interface from implementation
details. However, support for intercession has been limited in contemporary
mirror-based architectures. This is due to the fact that mirror-based
architectures only support reflection explicitly triggered by metaprograms,
while intercession requires reflection implicitly triggered by the language
interpreter. This work reconciles mirrors with intercession in the context of
an actor-based, object-oriented programming language named AmbientTalk. We
describe this language's full reflective architecture, highlighting its novel
mirror-based approach to reflect upon both objects and concurrently executing
actors. Subsequently, we apply AmbientTalk's mirror-based reflection to
implement two language features, which crucially depend on intercession, to wit
future-type message passing and leased object references.
Pages 661-699
Volume 39
Journal name Software: Practice and Experience
Publisher John Wiley & Sons (Hoboken, NJ, USA)
Reference URL View reference page