Higher order Programming in Java: Introspection, Subsumption and Extraction

Issue title: Concurrency Specification and Programming (CS&P 2004)

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Bellia, Marco | Occhiuto, M. Eugenia

Affiliations: Dipartimento di Informatica, Università di Pisa, Largo B. Pontecorvo 3, I-56127 Pisa, Italy. E-mail: bellia@di.unipi.it | Dipartimento di Informatica e Scienze dell'Informazione, Università di Genova, via Dodecaneso 35, I-16146 Genova, Italy. E-mail: occhiuto@di.unipi.it

Abstract: Higher order programming is considered a good methodology for program design and specification, furthermore it is fundamental for rapid prototyping. The paper is devoted to higher order programming in Java and, more in general, in the OO programming paradigm. We discuss introspection to write higher order programs and compare this technique with other different, interesting approaches, including function emulation and function integration. Finally, we address the problem of embedding, in the OO paradigm, the mechanisms for method passing and method extraction that are basic to the higher order programming methodology.

Journal: Fundamenta Informaticae, vol. 67, no. 1-3, pp. 29-44, 2005