Generic Programming

Generic programming centers around the idea of abstracting from concrete ef cient algorithms to obtain generic algorithms that can be combined with dierent data representations to produce a wide variety of useful software For example a class of generic sorting algorithms can be dened which work with nite sequences but which can be instantiated in dierent ways to produce algorithms working on arrays or linked lists Four kinds of abstractiondata algorithmic structural and representational are discussed with examples of their use in building an Ada library of software components The main topic discussed is generic algorithms and an approach to their formal specication and verication with illustration in terms of a partitioning algorithm such as is used in the quicksort algorithm It is argued that generically programmed software component libraries oer important advantages for achieving software productivity and reliabilit