|
== Overview ==
ELENA is a general-purpose, object-oriented, polymorphic language with late binding. It features multiplemessage dispatching, context-dependent/ rolesmanipulation, dynamic inheritanceobject mutation, a script engine / interpreter and group object support.
Any program or library consists of modules containing classes and symbols.
The language treats any program as a set of objects (class instances). The program flow is a process of interaction between objects by sending each other messages. A message may have attached information (a message parameter). An object may react on message if it has an appropriate message handler (a method). If the object reacts on the message it is treated as successful otherwise unsuccessful. In its turn the method may send messages to other objects and so on until the flow reaches the method written by external tools (meta method). If the message is unsuccessful the flow is considered to be broken. It's possible to declare alternative flow which are executed if previous ones are broken. The method has only one input parameter and one output parameter (the method may return itself).
The main way to interact with objects in ELENA is sending a message. The message name is structured and consists of a verb, a signature and a parameter counter. The verb defines a message action, for example read or write some data. There are only limited set of possible verbs. The signature is user defined and describes the message parameters. If the signature is not provided the message is considered to be generic and can be qualified (by dispatching).
Every object may be formed up with other objects characterizing its internal state. They in turn may be formed with others and so on until meta objects which internal states are considered as raw data.
All referring entities in the language are objects. A variable is a reference to the object allocated in the program heap. The literal and numeric constants are references to the objects allocated in the static memory.
== Namespaces ==
|