Multi-dimensional organization and browsing of object-oriented systems

Abstract

A two-dimensional organization for object-oriented systems and a browser supporting that organization are described. The organization provides sites for documenting both generic functions and object types, allows convenient browsing and information hiding according to both function and type, and supports the notion of abstract types. Also described is the extension of the organization and browser to multiple dimensions to allow for multi-methods that are split into separate implementations based on criteria in addition to receiver type. Inheritance and information hiding in the multidimensional case are discussed briefly. The multidimensional browser has been implemented on top of the RPDE3 environment framework.