A Tiny MOP, in Scheme (fwd)

[alms@cambridge.apple.com (Andrew LM Shalit)]

Forwarded message:

Date: 1 Dec 92 19:21:40 GMT
From: gregor@parc.xerox.com (Gregor Kiczales)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.scheme,comp.object,comp.lang.lisp,comp.lang.clos
Subject: A Tiny MOP, in Scheme


This message will be of interest to: (i) People who are interested in
metaobject protocols, particularly metaobject protocols for Lisp-based
object-oriented languages; and (ii) people who are interested in Lisp-
based object-oriented languages like CLOS and Dylan.  In this message,
we announce the public availability of the Scheme implementation of a
`kernelized' CLOS, with a metaobject protocol.  (If you are interested
only in OO languages, and not metaobject protocols, you can skip the
third, fourth and fifth paragraphs of this message.)

One stumbling block for people interested in playing with the metaobject
protocol (MOP) ideas has been the relative complexity of working in
Common Lisp.  This has been a particular obstacle for undergraduates and
others who normally work in Scheme (or a very reduced Common Lisp).  To
try and address this, we have designed and implemented a Scheme
embedding of a core subset of CLOS, with a corresponding core MOP.

Since our primary goal is pedagogical in nature, we have been able to
produce an extremely lean language, MOP and implementation.  The
implementation is even simpler than the simple CLOS found in `The Art of
the Metaobject Protocol,' weighing in at around 850 lines of code,
including (some) comments and documentation.

By making the new language and MOP be the core of CLOS and the CLOS MOP,
rather than some completely new language, our goal was to make possible
for people to work with existing written materials -- primarily `The Art
of the Metaobject Protocol' (AMOP) -- when playing with this system.
(It should also be possible for people working with Tiny CLOS to get
value from reading papers about others MOPs, such as ABLC/R, 3KRS and
others.)  A side benefit of this approach is that Tiny CLOS is close to
a core of Dylan, so people interested in that language may find value in
playing with Tiny CLOS as well.)

The MOP in Tiny CLOS is very simple -- 8 introspective procedures and 9
intercessory generics -- but it retains much of the power of both of the
MOPs found in AMOP.  Even though the Tiny CLOS implementation itself
isn't optimized, this MOP is amenable to optimization, using techniques
like those mentioned in AMOP.  In fact, the slot access protocol used in
this MOP is such that it should be possible to get better performance
than is possible with the CLOS MOP.

While it isn't our primary goal, Tiny CLOS can also be used by those who
are simply intereted in CLOS/Dylan style OO languages.  That is, you can
play with the base language without even thinking about the MOP.  A
great deal has already been said and written about how to learn, think
about and teach OOP and CLOS-like languages, so we won't say any more
about that.  But, it is important to point out a significant difference
between Tiny CLOS and CLOS/Dylan.  In Tiny CLOS, slot names are not
required to be symbols, they can be any Scheme datum (object).  (They
are compared using eq?.)  This means that one can use the lexical
scoping mechanisms of Scheme to achieve a greater degree of
encapsulation than is possible in CLOS.  For more on this, see the
second and third examples in the examples file.

Accompanying Tiny CLOS is a file of examples, that show how the base
language works, and how to use the MOP to do several common extensions.
Other things people might want to write are: before and after methods,
slot filling initargs, beta-like languages, singleton methods etc.

To make distribution simple, Tiny CLOS is available by anonymous ftp
from parcftp.xerox.com:/pub/mops.  There are five files of interest:

  
 tiny-annouce.text  This message.

 support.scm        Just a bunch of useful stuff.
                    (All implementation specific mods (are supposed
                    to) go in here.)
 tiny-clos.scm      The main program.
 tiny-examples.scm  A few little examples of using this language
                    and this MOP.
 tiny-rpp.text      The reflective processor program for this
                    MOP.  This file was generated, by hand, from
                    tiny-clos.scm by removing all the code that
                    deals with bootstrapping or grounding out
                    the tower.  That is, this is the code/protocol
                    that you should `think of' as running at the
                    next level, when ignoring issues of circularity.


MIT Scheme 11.74 is the only Scheme we have access to, so that is the
only Scheme in which we have run this stuff.  But, it should run with
only minor mods in other Schemes as well.  (Please send us those mods
so they can be included in the sources!)


This language, this MOP, and this implementation should not be treated
as any sort of finished product.  This whole thing was cranked out
relatively quickly, in response to an immediate need for simplified
Scheme embeddings of this stuff.  We are very interested in any
suggestions or improvements you might have or make.  So, please send
them in!

(It is also worth knowing that this is the first Scheme program I have
written in 10 years, so I'm willing to believe I have a lot to learn
about good Scheme style.  Rather than just snickering, please let me
know about stupid things this code does in that regard.)

One other note.  You will notice that these files have a copyright
notice on them, as is the fashion these days.  It isn't copyleft, it is
somewhat more liberal than that.  If you have any questions about it,
send us mail.

Finally, please let us know if you decide to play with this stuff, and
if you want to be on the mops@parc.xerox.com mailing list.  (Note,
please don't use this mailing list for adminstrative stuff.  It is for
technical questions and discussions.  For administrative stuff, send
mail to Gregor@parc.xerox.com.)