Zero—a blend of static typing and dynamic metaprogramming

✍ Scribed by Sašo Greiner; Janez Brest; Viljem Žumer

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 221 KB
• Volume: 35
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1477-8424
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cl.2008.04.001

✦ Synopsis

Run-time modification

Zero is an experimental statically typed, fully object-oriented reflective programming language. Reflective features cover introspection as well as structural and behavioural reflection. The reflective facilities include safe method and class replacements and detailed modification of methods. These enable Zero programs to quickly accommodate to run-time requirements. Behavioural reflection is realised using handlers (hooks), which may be attached to all language constructs based on closures. Zero provides an efficient static typing system with run-time extensions. Methods are first class values and are represented as objects when such representation is required. By using such representation, Zero provides elegant use of statically typed higher-order methods.