Power to Collections: Generalizing Polymorphism by Unifying Array Programming and Object-Oriented Programming

Array programming shines in its ability to express computations at a high-level of abstraction, allowing one to manipulate and query whole sets of data at once. This paper presents the OOPAL model that enhances object-oriented programming with array programming features. The goal of OOPAL is to determine a minimum set of modifications that must be made to the traditional object model in order to take advantage of the possibilities of array programming. It is based on a minimal extension of method invocation and the definition of a kernel of methods implementing the fundamental array programming operations. The model is validated in F-SCRIPT, a new scripting language