SW 2 - An object-based programming environment

Mark R. Laff, Brent T. Hailpern · 1985

Programming systems traditionally deal with only a few different types of data objects. Operating-system command languages, for example, are concerned with files and programs. Typical programming languages deal with computer-related objects such as integers, strings, arrays, and records. This is in sharp contrast to the variety of real-world objects that people reason about. Smallworld is a programming environment in which the real world is represented by objects that have properties. A property represents a fact about the corresponding real-world entity. Thus Smallworld actions (programs), which operate on objects specified in this simple but general way, are “smart”: they consider all of the relevant facts concerning (that is, all of the properties of) the objects they manipulate.

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