Tom Language

See the site: http://www.gerbil.org/tom/

Free OO Language with shared things with ObjectiveCee (actually you need the objc compiler to make it work) developed by ProgrammersWithoutDeadlines?. Its main design issue is allowing to develop over (read: extend) classes provided by libraries even if you don't have the source code. Thus, TOM seems to be really flexible and powerful for systems developing and redesign.

From the site:

Contemporary object-oriented programming languages employ the class as the unit of reuse. At the same time, the class is also the unit of design. This implies that to reuse a class, the design of the class must fit the design in which it will be reused. While this serves planned reuse, it hampers unplanned reuse. Obviously, unplanned reuse is much more important if widespread reuse is desired.

TOM is an object-oriented programming language that advocates unplanned reuse of code. To this effect, TOM enables unplanned reuse through the following features:

A class is defined by its main definition and any extensions.
An extension can add methods, variables, and superclasses to a class. The source of the original class is not relevant while it is extended: it is not needed and does not need recompilation; nor is recompilation required for any client code or subclasses. Extensions can even be loaded at run time.
Unplanned reuse removes the privilege of class modification from the class designer and hands it over as a right to the user. Every user has other uses for a class: the class does not need to suit them all if they can make it suit themselves.

What does this offer to the writer of classes? Using a class is no longer a binary choice: the user can be almost satisfied by it and adjust it to his needs. And you can severely update the classes in your library, e.g., add instance variables or replace methods, without requiring recompilation of any program using it, or requiring a non-backward-compatible version change of your shared library.

(FWIW- the RubyLanguage offers the same dynamic class structure) -- Can Ruby actually update classes imported via, for example, a library written in C++ with the SimplifiedWrapperAndInterfaceGenerator? -- Yes, it can.

It's interesting and weird at the same time, but it provides a curious OO model and some powerful feautures that I am slowly exploring these days... See [1] for more info -- DavidDeLis

The newer TOM compiler bootstraps from C, so you no longer need an ObjectiveCee compiler.

CategoryProgrammingLanguage