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This paper shows how the notion of role, as given in ontologies and knowledge representation, can be introduced in Java, defining a prototype language powerJava where roles allow objects to offer different operations depending on the type of the role, of the type and identity of the player of the role, and to define session-aware interaction.

Method overloading and overriding cause distribution transparency and encapsulation flaws
By Antoine Beugnard, and Salah Sadou

Based on an experiment using three languages under .NET, this paper shows that overriding and overloading are not compatible with encapsulation; a solution is proposed to avoid exposure of the internal structure of components.

The authors propose an extension of Java-like languages allowing programmers to omit type annotations in strategic places of their programs without losing type-safety. This is achieved by means of inferred type constraints describing the implicit requirements on untyped code to be correctly executed. A prototype implementation is available on a small, yet significant, Java subset.

The author presents a new refactoring named "Infer Type", which by using type inference completely automates the construction of new, context-specific interfaces and their use in variable declarations, thus supporting greater decoupling and access protection of code, and serving the goals of interface-based programming.

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