Mool: an Object-Oriented Programming Language with Generics and Modules

Modern object-oriented languages like Java and C# do not support parametric polymorphism and do not have a traditional module system to allow the development of large systems. They overload the class mechanism with several tasks and they use packages and namespaces to organize clusters of classes providing weak control for accessing members. Other languages that support generic programming and objects do not have a simple object model to support object-oriented features. In this thesis the language MOOL is presented. MOOL is a class-based object-oriented language that supports modular programming and genericity. The main goal in the design of MOOL was simplicity rather than efficiency. MOOL contains separated mechanisms for different concepts like classes and modules, which are unified in other languages. MOOL is not a pure object-oriented language where everything is an object. Non-object features like functions and modules are part of the language to enhance expressivity, to structure programs and to support code reuse.