Feature featherweight java: a calculus for feature-oriented programming and stepwise refinement

Abstract

Feature-oriented programming (FOP) is a paradigm that incorporates programming language technology, program generation techniques, and stepwise refinement. In their GPCE'07 paper, Thaker et al. suggest the development of a type system for FOP to guarantee safe feature composition, i.e, to guarantee the absence of type errors during feature composition. We present such a type system along with a calculus for a simple feature-oriented, Java-like language, called Feature Featherweight Java (FFJ). Furthermore, we explore four extensions of FFJ and how they affect type soundness.