Generic Programming

Generic programming is about making programmes more adaptable by making them more general. Generic programmes often embody non-traditional kinds of polymorphism; ordinary programmes are obtained from them by suitably instantiating their parameters. In contrast with normal programmes, the parameters of a generic programme are often quite rich in structure; for example, they may be other programmes, types or type constructors, class hierarchies, or even programming paradigms. Generic programming techniques have always been of interest, both to practitioners and to theoreticians, but generic programming techniques as a specific focus of research in the functional and object-oriented programming language communities is a contemporary phenomenon. This title comprises the edited proceedings of the Working Conference on Generic Programming, which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and held in Dagstuhl, Germany in July 2002. With contributions from leading researchers around the world, this volume captures the state of the art in this important emerging area.