CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2010/ch6 6a RJ

Survey of selected Delegation-based Programming Languages

Delegation-based programming languages, also known as Prototype-based programming languages, represents a style of object-oriented programming in which classes are not present, and behavior reuse (known as inheritance in class-based languages) is performed via a process of cloning existing objects that serve as prototypes. This model can also be known as class-less, prototype-oriented or instance-based programming. Delegation is the language feature that supports prototype-based programming.

The original, and most canonical, example of a prototype-based language is the programming language Self developed by David Ungar and Randall Smith. Since the late 1990s, the classless programming style has grown increasingly popular, and has been adopted for the languages Javascript, ActionScript, Cecil, NewtonScript, Io, Moo, REBOL, Lisaac, Lua and several others.[1] This topic will briefly review features of three Delegation-based programming languages: Lua, Io, and Actionscript.

Lua

History of Lua

Lua was created in 1993 by Roberto Ierusalimschy, Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo, and Waldemar Celes, members of the Computer Graphics Technology Group (Tecgraf) at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro]in Brazil. [2]

The design of Lua was influenced by Scheme,

Info about Lua Language goes here.

Javascript

Info about Javascript Language goes here.

Actionscript

Info about Actionscript Language goes here.

Lua

Info about Lua Language goes here.

Io

Info about Io Language goes here.

Delegation-based Programming Languages compared to Class-based Programming Languages

Intro

References

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype-based_programming