Re: [Corelinux-public] MetaClass

[Frank V. C. <fr...@co...>]

> Thomas Maguire wrote:
> 
> It is a little unclear from the functional requirements as to the
> intent of the MetaClass ontology.
> Is it a static compilation time class DAG or is it a dynamic type
> creation system that allows
> me to prototype new types and semantics?  The dynamic approach could
> allow for the
> creation of new types and allow coercion of parent types into the
> newly created type.
> This coupled with some sort of dynamic dispatch mechanism could even
> allow for
> method extension.
> 
> Just a thought
> 
> Tom
> 

First off, the statements made in regards to ontology are to elucidate
some terminology that may not be familiar to the focus audience (C++
developers). After all, many a C++'er idea of type information is what
you get out of RTTI. I am very familiar with conceptual modeling, and
run-time instantiation for reasoning and reification, I just couldn't
assume the rest of the world was.

Having done that, and apparently hooking a fish right off the bat
<grin>, the next step was to realize, through feedback,  whether or not
this would be a useful addition, or would it hopelessly complicate the
implementation and use of the class libraries.

The subject attained rights of passage because of my struggle of trying
to design the FunctionLibrary Loader without meta-class and type
ontologies. I played with alternative ideas to find some elegant and
correct way to express arguments and return types that don't just flop
into the domain (application developers) solution space. I can find no
better way. Obviously this would be available to all extensions thereby
normalizing how these type situations (no pun intended) could be dealt
with cleanly, and without rewriting the wheel.

Once I started walking down the meta-class path, Christophe and I
discussed the potential for a dynamic IDL type declarative parser to
create types "on the fly" if you will. But discussing this to some level
I fell that there is a thin line between what we want to achieve and
full out object brokering. I don't not want to go for the latter!

From the short term, again, I am interested in being able to express
types, not prototypes, with some level of attribute expressiveness.

-- 
Frank V. Castellucci
http://corelinux.sourceforge.net
OOA/OOD/C++ Standards and Guidelines for Linux
http://PythPat.sourceforge.net
Pythons Pattern Package