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Nominal and Structural Subtyping in Component-Based Programming

Klaus Ostermann, University of Aarhus, Denmark

 

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Abstract

In nominal type systems, the subtype relation is between names of types, and subtype links are explicitly declared. In structural type systems, names are irrelevant; in determining type compatibility, only the structure of types is considered, and a type name is just an abbreviation for the full type. We analyze structural and different flavors of nominal subtyping from the perspective of component-based programming, where issues such as blame assignment and modular extensibility are important. Our analysis puts various existing subtyping mechanisms into a common frame of reference and delineates the frontiers of the subtyping design space. In addition, we propose a new subtyping definition in one particularly interesting corner of the design space which combines the safety of nominal subtyping with the flexibility of structural subtyping.


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About the authors

Klaus Ostermann is associate professor for computer science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. His main research interests are in programming languages and software engineering for modular software development.




Cite this article as follows: Klaus Ostermann: "Nominal and Structural Subtyping in Component-Based Programming", in Journal of Object Technology, vol. 7, no. 1, January-February 2007, pp. 121-145, http://www.jot.fm/issues/issue_2008_01/article4/


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