Brock University
Department of Computer Science

David J. F. Hughes

Research Interests

1. Technology-based Learning
   • Using the WWW for instruction
     • The Spring 1995 section of COSC 1P90 Miscocomputer Applications was taught using the WWW to present the lectures (in class) and provide all course resources to students. Extensive evaluation of this section was undertaken (two questionaires and two sets of interviews with each student) and the data is currently being analysed. A followup study is being considered.
     • A suit of tools for the presentation of lectures and seminars over the WWW (distance education) is being considered.
2. Object-Oriented Programming Languages
   • Java, Eiffel
   • separation of type and inheritance hierarchy
     • In most strongly-types object-oriented languages, the class inheritance hierarchy is also the subtyping mechanism (i.e. a subclass is a subtype). This does not always lead to reasonable results. Research on the separation of these two hierarchies is ongoing.
   • concurrent object-oriented languages
     • Object-oriented languages are probably one of the best models for support on highly parallel processors (eg. transputers) where objects could be mapped to individual processors.
   • design of object-oriented languages
3. Programming language design
   • general issues of programming language design: syntax and semantics
4. Simulation languages and tools
   • design and implementation of simulation languages and tools
     • S/Pascal, a Pascal superset with support for simulation
     • A set of Modula-2 modules supporting simulation

Links to Interesting Pages

WWW for instruction

• World Lecture Hall
  • Contains pointers to lots of on-line course information. Some is just syllabus type stuff, others have complete course material.
• Macintosh Computer Applications
  • Course description, objective, and outline. By Dennis W. Butler, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

Computer Science home page