A persistent programming language: preliminary Report

Abstract

A persistent programming language PPL is currently being designed at the University of Cape Town. The language treats persistence (permanent storage) as an orthogonal property of data and is consistent in its treatment of persistent and transient data. The persistence of an object is the length of time the object exists. In traditional programming languages, data does not last longer than the execution of the program unless some storage agency such as a file or database is used. With persistent programming, data can continue to exist after programs have been run to completion, and the method of accessing the data is the same for both long and short term objects. The inclusion of semantic data modelling concepts [8] in a programming language is also being investigated in PPL. This paper describes the need for a persist.ent programming language and gives an overview of PPL.