Hyper-programming in Java

Abstract

Hyper-programming is a technology only available in persistent systems since hyper-program source contains both text and links to persistent objects. A hyper-programming system has already been prototyped in the persistent programming language Napier88. Here we report on the transfer of that technology to a more commercial platform, Java. The component technologies required for hyper-programming include linguistic reflection, a persistent store, and a browsing mechanism, all of which have been reported elsewhere. The topics of discussion here are the additional technologies of: the specification of denotable hyper-links in Java; a mechanism for preserving links over traditional compilation; a hyper-program editor; and the integration of the editor and the browser with the hyper-programming user interface. We describe their design and implementation. In total these technologies constitute a hyper-programming system in Java.