CommonLoops

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CommonLoops (the Common Lisp Object-Oriented Programming System;^[1] an acronym reminiscent of the earlier Lisp OO system "Loops" for the Interlisp-D system^[2]) is an early program which extended Common Lisp to include Object-oriented programmingfunctionality and is a dynamic object system which differs radically from the OOP facilities found in static languages such as C++ or Java. It was used in Xerox's Lisp machines, and was, like its fellow multiple inheritance & message passing (message passing is implemented through function calls) New Flavors, a major influence on CLOS.^[3] CommonLoops also made use of metaobjects, which is its primary difference from New Flavors (CommonLoops uses many of the same ideas and algorithms as New Flavors).

[edit] References

1. ^ pg 18 of Bobrow 1986
2. ^ pg 24 of Bobrow 1986
3. ^ "Symbolics (1985) was using New Flavors (a message-sending model, like Java today), Xerox was using CommonLoops, Lisp Machine Incorporated was using Object Lisp (Bobrow, 1986), and Hewlett-Packard proposed using Common Objects (Kempf, 1987). The groups vied with each other in the context of the standardization effort going on for Common Lisp at the time and finally settled on a standard based on CommonLoops and New Flavors." pg 108 of Veitch 1998.

• "CommonLoops: merging Lisp and object-oriented programming", by Daniel G. Bobrow, Kenneth Kahn, Gregor Kiczales, Larry Masinter, Mark Stefik, Frank Zdybel. 1986, Portland, Oregon, United States. Pages 17 - 29 of the Conference on Object Oriented Programming Systems Languages and Applications, ISSN 0362-1340.
• "A History and Description of CLOS", by Jim Veitch. Pages 107-158 of Handbook of Programming Languages, Volume IV: Functional and Logic Programming Languages, ed. Peter H. Salus. 1998 (1st edition), Macmillian Technical Publishing; ISBN 1-57870-011-6

[edit] Further reading

• The Loops Manual, Daniel G. Bobrow, Mark Stefik. Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Xerox Corporation, 1983