Reuse in object-oriented languages typically focuses on inheritance. Numerous techniques have been developed to provide finer-grained reuse of methods, such as flavors, mixins and traits. These techniques, however, only deal with reuse at the level of classes. Class-based reuse is inherently static. Increasing use of reflection and meta-programming techniques in real world applications underline the need for more dynamic approaches. We propose a new approach that deals with reuse at the object level and that supports behavioral composition. We introduce a new abstraction called a talent which models features that are shared between objects of different class hierarchies. Talents provide a composition mechanism that is as flexible as that of traits but which is dynamic.

Presentations

Getting Started

To get started you can either use a ready-made one-click image (suggested), or try to load the code yourself.

One-Click Image

1. Download the Talents distribution.
2. Launch the executable of your platform:
   • Mac: talents-OneClick.app
   • Linux: talents-OneClick.app/talents-OneClick.sh
   • Windows: talents-OneClick.app/talents-OneClick.exe

Loading

Gofer new 
	squeaksource: 'talents';
	package: 'ConfigurationOfTalents';
	load.
(Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfTalents)
	perform: #loadDefault.

Publications

1. Manuel Leuenberger. Talented Streams — Objects composed from Features. Bachelor's thesis, University of Bern, February 2013. PDF →
2. Manuel Leuenberger. Talented Streams Implementation. Bachelor's thesis, supplementary documentation, University of Bern, February 2013. PDF →
3. Jorge Ressia, Tudor Gîrba, Oscar Nierstrasz, Fabrizio Perin, and Lukas Renggli. Talents: Dynamically Composable Units of Reuse. In Proceedings of International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies (IWST 2011), p. 109—118, 2011. DOI PDF →
4. Jorge Ressia. Object-Centric Reflection. PhD thesis, University of Bern, October 2012. PDF →
5. Jorge Ressia, Tudor Gîrba, Oscar Nierstrasz, Fabrizio Perin, and Lukas Renggli. Talents: an environment for dynamically composing units of reuse. In Software: Practice and Experience, 2012. DOI PDF →