OMOS - An object server for program execution

The benefits of object-oriented programming are well known, but popular operating systems provide very few object-oriented features to users, and few are implemented using object-oriented techniques themselves. In this paper we discuss a mechanism for applying object-oriented programming concepts to program binding (linking) and execution. We describe OMOS, an object/meta-object server that embodies a flexible object framework. The OMOS framework projects an object-oriented structure onto programs and shared libraries that may not have been originally developed for use within an object-oriented environment. This framework provides natural facilities for inheritance, interposition, and overloading of operations, as well as development of classes with dynamically evolving behavior.