Simula2 -- extending Simula with type parametrisation and exceptions

Abstract

This thesis constitutes the research report submitted as part of my candidatus scientarium program at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. In this work, two proposals for the Simula language are discussed and a reference implementation based on the CIM compiler is proposed.

The proposals concern two features commonly found in today's programming languages: exceptions and type parametrisation. We analyse these features' suitability for Simula. We also test the proposals in a proof-of-concept implementation.

The Simula language has a number of unique features, that make the task of compiler writing quite challenging. Incorporating exceptions and type parametrisation within Simula has proved difficult, but the reference implementation demonstrates that it is indeed possible.