Role-oriented programming as a form of

computer programming Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as ana ...

aims at expressing things in terms that are analogous to human

concept Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs. They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by s ...

ual understanding of the

world In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

. This should make programs easier to understand and maintain. The main idea of role-oriented programming is that humans think in terms of

role A role (also rôle or social role) is a set of connected behaviors, rights, moral obligation, obligations, beliefs, and social norm, norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavi ...

s. This claim is often backed up by examples of

social relations A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...

. For example, a student attending a class and the same student at a party are the same person, yet that person plays two different roles. In particular, the interactions of this person with the outside world depend on his current role. The roles typically share features, e.g., the intrinsic properties of being a person. This sharing of properties is often handled by the delegation mechanism. In the older literature and in the field of

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

s, it seems that there has been little consideration for the context in which roles interplay with each other. Such a context is being established in newer role- and

aspect-oriented programming In computing, aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a programming paradigm that aims to increase modularity by allowing the separation of cross-cutting concerns. It does so by adding behavior to existing code (an advice) ''without'' modifying t ...

languages such as Object Teams. Compare the use of "role" as "a set of software programs (services) that enable a server to perform specific functions for users or computers on the network" in

Windows Server Windows Server (formerly Windows NT Server) is a group of operating systems (OS) for servers that Microsoft has been developing since July 27, 1993. The first OS that was released for this platform was Windows NT 3.1 Advanced Server. With the r ...

jargon. Many researchers have argued the advantages of roles in

modeling A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

and implementation. Roles allow objects to evolve over time, they enable independent and concurrently existing views (interfaces) of the object, explicating the different contexts of the object, and separating concerns. Generally roles are a natural element of human daily concept-forming. Roles in programming languages enable objects to have changing interfaces, as we see in

real life Real life is a phrase used originally in literature to distinguish between the real world and fictional, virtual or idealized worlds, and in acting to distinguish between actors and the characters they portray. It has become a popular term on th ...

- things change over time, are used differently in different contexts, etc.

Authors of role literature

Barbara Pernici

Bruce Wallace
*

Charles Bachman Charles William Bachman III (December 11, 1924 – July 13, 2017) was an American computer scientist, who spent his entire career as an industrial researcher, developer, and manager rather than in academia. He was particularly known for his ...

Friedrich Steimann

Kasper B. Graversen

Kasper Østerbye

*

Trygve Reenskaug Trygve Mikkjel Heyerdahl Reenskaug (born 21 June 1930) is a Norwegian computer scientist and professor emeritus of the University of Oslo. He formulated the model–view–controller (MVC) pattern for graphical user interface (GUI) software des ...

Thomas Kühn

Programming languages with explicit support for roles

* JavaScript Delegation - Functions as Roles (Traits and Mixins)
Object Teams
* Perl (Moose) * Raku
powerJava

SCala ROLes Language

References

External links

Adaptive Plug-and-Play Components for Evolutionary Software Development
by Mira Mezini and Karl Lieberherr

Overview and taxonomy of Role languages

ROPE: Role Oriented Programming Environment for Multiagent Systems
{{compu-prog-stub Object-based programming languages Programming paradigms

Authors of role literature

Programming languages with explicit support for roles

See also

References

External links