Persistent Polymorphic Programming in Tycoon:
An Introduction

Florian Matthes Sven Müßig J.W. Schmidt

Universität Hamburg
Vogt-Kölln Straße 30
D-22527 Hamburg, Germany
{matthes,muessig,J_Schmidt}@informatik.uni-hamburg.de

Abstract:

This text provides an introduction to Tycoon, an open persistent polymorphic programming environment. The Tycoon language TL is based on expressive and orthogonal naming, typing and binding concepts as they are required, for example, in advanced data-intensive applications. The characteristic language mechanisms of TL are first-class functions and modules, parametric and subtype polymorphism extended to a fully higher-order type system. Tycoon programs are statically typed but may include explicit dynamic type variables which can be inspected at run-time.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Tycoon system described in this paper was developed by Andreas Gawecki, Bernd Mathiske, Florian Matthes and Rainer Müller. Section 13 of this text was written by Bernd Mathiske who also developed Tycoon's external language bindings. The authors would also like to thank Claudia Niederée, Gerald Schröder, Petra Münnix, Andreas Rudloff and Dominic Juhász for their careful reviewing of this paper and numerous hints which helped to improve the presentation of the material.

• Contents
• 1 Introduction and Motivation
• 2 Language Classification
• 3 Lexical and Syntactical Rules
• 4 Predefined Values and Functions
• 5 User-defined Values and Functions
• 6 Predefined Value and Type Constructors
• 7 Subtype Relationships and Subtype Polymorphism
• 8 Parametric Polymorphism
• 9 Imperative Programming
• 10 Multi-Paradigm Programming in Tycoon
• 11 Programming in the Large
• 12 Persistence and Garbage Collection
• 13 External C Libraries
• 14 Layout and Naming Conventions
• The TL Grammar
• Predefined Identifiers
• References
• Index
• About this document ...