Time: 11:30 - 11:20

Room: Stokerij

Abstract

Extensibility in programming means that you can add features by adding code, without having to modify existing code. For instance, to add a new data variant in OO, you may add a new subclass. Or in functional programming, it's easy to add new operations over a data type. However, the kind of extensibility offered by OO does not work in FP (try adding a constructor), and vice versa (adding an operation over a family of classes). This deep and inherent trade-off has become known as the "expression problem". Object algebras are a new and simple solution to the expression problem which works in mainstream programming languages such as Java, C#, Dart, and Scala. In this session I'll introduce the expression problem in some depth, and show how the object algebra style of programming is a solution to it.