Computer Science and
     Software Engineering

Computer Science and Software Engineering

MAST 03/06

The Provision of Non-Strictness, Higher Kinded Types and Higher Ranked Types on an Object Oriented Virtual Machine

Oliver Hunt
Department of Computer Science
University of Canterbury

Abstract

We discuss the development of a number of algorithms and techniques to al- low object oriented virtual machines to support many of the features needed by functional and other higher level languages. These features include non- strict evaluation, partial function application, higher ranked and higher kinded types. To test the mechanisms that we have developed we have also produced a compiler to allow the functional language Haskell to be compiled to a native executable for the Common Language Runtime. This has allowed us to demonstrate that the techniques we have developed are practically viable.