Object-Oriented Modeling of Programming Paradigms

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel object-oriented modeling approach to represent various programming paradigms, enabling their use without dedicated languages, thus promoting standardization and flexibility in software development.

Contribution

It introduces a new method of modeling programming paradigms object-orientedly, illustrated with dataflow and constraint programming examples, reducing reliance on specialized languages.

Findings

Object-oriented modeling can effectively represent different programming paradigms.

The approach allows paradigm selection during analysis, not language constraints.

Examples demonstrate feasibility for dataflow and constraint programming.

Abstract

For the right application, the use of programming paradigms such as functional or logic programming can enormously increase productivity in software development. But these powerful paradigms are tied to exotic programming languages, while the management of software development dictates standardization on a single language. This dilemma can be resolved by using object-oriented programming in a new way. It is conventional to analyze an application by object-oriented modeling. In the new approach, the analysis identifies the paradigm that is ideal for the application; development starts with object-oriented modeling of the paradigm. In this paper we illustrate the new approach by giving examples of object-oriented modeling of dataflow and constraint programming. These examples suggest that it is no longer necessary to embody a programming paradigm in a language dedicated to it.