A view matcher for reusing smalltalk classes

Abstract

A prime attraction of object-oriented programming languages is the possibility of reusing code. We examine the support provided by Smalltalk to programmers attempting to incorporate an existing class into a new design, focussing on issues of usage examples, object-specific analysis, how-to-use-it information, and object connections. We then describe a View Matcher for reuse, a tool that documents reusable classes through a set of coordinated views onto concrete usage examples; in three scenarios, we illustrate how the tool addresses the issues raised in our analysis of reuse in Smalltalk. © 1991 ACM.