Object-oriented operating system

Abstract

An apparatus for enabling an object-oriented application to access in an object-oriented manner a procedural operating system having a native procedural interface is disclosed. The apparatus includes a computer and a memory component in the computer. A code library is stored in the memory component. The code library includes computer program logic implementing an object-oriented class library. The object-oriented class library comprises related object-oriented classes for enabling the application to access in an object-oriented manner services provided by the operating system. The object-oriented classes include methods for accessing the operating system services using procedural function calls compatible with the native procedural interface of the operating system. The computer processes object-oriented statements contained in the application and defined by the class library by executing methods from the class library corresponding to the object-oriented statements.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation of, and hereby claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 120 to, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 648,471, filed on 27 Aug. 2003, entitled “Object-Oriented Operating System,” by inventors Debra Lyn Orton et al.[0002]This application also claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 120 to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08 / 521,085, filed 29 Aug. 1995 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,684,261), of which application Ser. No. 10 / 648,471 is a continuation.[0003]This application further claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 120 to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08 / 315,212, filed 28 Sep. 1994 (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,475,845), of which application Ser. No. 08 / 521,085 is a continuation.[0004]This application further claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 120 to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08 / 094,675, filed 19 Jul. 1993 (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,379,432), of which application Ser. No. 08 / 315,212 is a continuation.[0005]This application is related to applicat...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Consider a software windowing example: if every detail of every window that appears on a user's screen in a graphical user interface (GUI)-based program had to have all of its state and behavior hard-coded into a program, then both the program and the windows it contains would lose almost all of their flexibility.

One potential drawback to an object-oriented environment lies in the proliferation of objects that must exhibit behavior which is similar and which one would like to use as a single message name to describe.

In conventional, procedure-oriented languages, such a linguistic approach would wreak havoc.

Consequently, the services provided by these operating systems can only be accessed by using the procedures defined by their respective procedural interfaces.

Consequently, some of the modularity, maintainability, and reusability advantages associated with object-oriented programs are lost since it is not possible to utilize classes, objects, and other OOT features to their fullest extent possible.

While this ultimately may be the best solution, it currently is not a practical solution since the resources required to modify all of the major, procedural operating systems would be enormous.

Also, such a modification of these procedural operating systems would render useless thousands of procedure-oriented software programs.

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