"Advanced Topics in Object-Oriented Systems"

Have you ever wondered what's there to object-orientation beyond
encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism? In fact, object-oriented
systems happens to be one of the most dynamic research areas,
intersecting with systems, programming languages, compilers, and software
engineering. In recent years, research in object-oriented systems
engendered several exciting technologies, including aspect-oriented
programming (AOP), various advances in programming languages theory (e.g.,
type systems, formal methods), design (e.g., genericity, reflection,
meta-programming), and implementation (e.g., virtual dispatch, garbage
collection, just-in-time-compilation), middleware (the J2EE and .NET
technologies), concurrency (e.g., Java memory model), and others.

This course will provide students with a background in object-oriented
research by covering both standard research literature (primarily from
the proceeding of the European Conference on Object Oriented Programming
(ECOOP) and Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages,
and Applications (OOPSLA)) and providing hands-on experience with specific
technologies. Taking the course should introduce students to a range
of advanced object-oriented topics and expose open research problems
in the area. The course will have midterm and final exams and several
programming assignments. Prerequisites: proficiency in a mainstream
object-oriented language such as Java, C++, C#, or Smalltalk. For more
information, please contact the instructor at tilevich@cs.vt.edu