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Sina

Language type:

O - Object-oriented

Description:

Sina is an academic object-oriented language designed around the Composition Filters Object Model.
As an OO language, Sina supplies the usual features like inheritance, encapsulation, and abstract data types. The structure of a Sina program is simply a collection of classes. Each class may be separated into an interface and an implementation. Each interface and implementation can contain external and internal state, invariant conditions, methods, and filters. Individual methods (and filters) contain sequential code; the control structures supported by Sina are: if-then-else, while loops, and a numerically-oriented for loop. Primitive data types supported by Sina include: strings, numbers, booleans, and object references. Arrays are not primitives, but are provided by a built-in class.
The only implementation of Sina, called Sina/st, is an interpreter written in Smalltalk. The implementation is available free, but requires a copy of a commercial Smalltalk system. The current version as of late 1996 was Sina/st 3.1.

Origin:

A. Tripathi et al, 1989.

See Also:

Smalltalk    Eiffel    Leda    Self    Objective-C   

Remarks:

Sina was implemented specifically for VisualWorks(tm) Smalltalk, and currently runs only in that environment. It does give the Sina programmer access to the extensive facilities of the Smalltalk system.
The Compositional Filters Object Model is a layering abstraction for defining objects and their interactions. It can be employed to define mechanisms for inheritance, delegation, reflection, persistence, and other advanced OOP concepts in a uniform and general way.
Early papers about Sina seem to imply concurrency support, but the current documentation does not mention it.
It seems that development of Sina stopped after version 3.1.

Links:

Introduction to the Sina Language

Sina download page

Date:

Last updated 6/19/98

Sample code:

// an example from the Sina/st 3.1 distribution

main
	comment '
		Bring a salute to our globe';
	temps
		hello: HelloWorld;
begin
	hello.show
end // main

#Category 'Sina-Hello world';
class HelloWorld interface
methods
	show returns nil;
inputfilters
	disp: Dispatch = {inner.*};
end; // interface HelloWorld

class HelloWorld implementation
methods
	show
	begin
		self.printLine('Hello, world!');
		return
	end; // show
end; // implementation HelloWorld

Descriptions in this dictionary are ©1997-99 Neal Ziring. Some examples copyright of their respective authors. Some technologies and languages are trademarked. Permission to copy descriptions is granted as long as authorship credit is preserved.

Comments on this dictionary, corrections and suggestions, are all welcome. Please use email, the address is ziring@home.com