Workshop 23. The Object Engine: Foundation for Next Generation Architectures

Overview: An object engine is defined as an execution environment which supports a common, extensible object paradigm with machine and language independent facilities. The specification of an object engine could lead to improvements in the basic capabilities of languages and environments, support for the integration of multiple paradigms and tools, facilities for distributed object computing, and enhancements of encapsulation, reflection and polymorphism. The engine design might also suggest hardware and operating system mechanisms that could improve performance. The challenge is to achieve a proper balance between the functionality of the object engine, run-time performance, and the flexibility needed to support and evolve multiple paradigms and distributed computing.

Goals and Focus: This workshop will continue definition of the scope, functionality and interface of the object engine that began at the workshop of the same name at OOPSLA'94. The report in the OOPSLA'94 Addendum will serve as a starting point for discussions.

Requirements for Attendance: Participants should have insights on the design, implementation and application of languages. One goal of participant selection will be to bring together a diversity of experience and perspectives. We want to encourage participants with experience in the following fields:

Participants will be required to submit a brief paper describing their relevant experience and their position on requirements for an object engine. While participants from the 1994 workshop are encouraged to return, we look forward to gaining additional ideas and perspectives from new participants.

Organizers: 

Fred A. Cummins (Submissions)
Electronic Data Systems
5555 New King Street
Troy, Michigan, USA 48098
Telephone: (810) 696-2016
FAX: (810) 696-2325
email: cummins@ae.eds.com


Roman Cunis
MAZ GmbH
Hamburg, Germany

Gail E. Harris
RES Policy Research, Inc. 
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
email: ak753@freenet.carleton.ca

Papers presented:

(in postscript format)
Support for Application Objects in a Distributed Environment, Fred Cummins
Summary of Requirements from OOPSLA 94, Gail E. Harris
The TNT Virtual Machine, Bruno Achauer
Musings of an Engine Builder, Umesh Bellur
Position paper on the Object Engine (in text format), Jim Coker
The Next Generation: Reflecting on Architectural Components, H. Justin Coven
Object Engines all over the World, Andreas Kind
Implementation of a Smart Object Interpreter, William Kuechler, Jr., Vijay Vaishnavi, Dan Turk
The Object Engine Architecture, Fred Cummins

Workshop Summary

The workshop summary highlights the major contributions of each presenter and presents the architecture developed as a result of workshop discussions.

This information last updated .