Abstract. Much recent work on proof-carrying code aims to build certifying compilers for single-inheritance object-oriented languages, such as Java or C#. Some advanced object-oriented languages support compiling a derived class without complete information about its base class. This strategy—though necessary for supporting features such as mixins, traits, and first-class classes—is not wellsupported by existing typed intermediate languages. We present a low-level IL with a type system based on the Calculus of Inductive Constructions. It is an appropriate target for efficient, type-preserving compilation of various forms of inheritance, even when the base class is unknown at compile time. Languages (such as Java) that do not require such flexibility are not penalized for it at run time. 1

OO) languages. Programs are being assembled out of separately developed software components deployed in binary form. Unfortunately, mainstream OO languages (such as Java) still do not provide support for true modular linking.

Abstract. The successful assembly of large programs out of software components depends on modular reasoning. When the linking of component code is modular, components can be compiled and type checked separately, deployed in binary form, and are easier to reuse. Unfortunately, linking is not modular in many mainstream OO languages like Java. In this paper we propose an intuitive and formal framework for enhancing a language with modular linking, which is applied to the specific problem of making linking in Java modular. In our proposed framework, the degree to which components can be reasoned about modularly is adversely affected by language features that limit abstraction. We show that most of Java’s core language features, such as inheritance, permit a high degree of modular linking even in the presence of cyclic dependencies. 1

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