Support for value types in an object-oriented programming language

Values and objects are two different logical concepts. Objects can be created and changed, values, in contrast, exist per se and are immutable. Current object-oriented languages support mainly objects and classes of objects. Classes cannot be used to simulate value types in a satisfactory way. The paper proposes a language element that supports arbitrary value types and that can be embedded in an object-oriented language. It describes the corresponding keywords, syntax, and consistency checks. Thereby, it gives an impression of the "look and feel" of value types from an application programmer's perspective.