Re: Inheritance of Methods

[David A. Moon <Moon@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>]

    Date: 22 Jan 87 10:59 PST
    From: Masinter.pa@Xerox.COM

    What gets inherited is more than accessors and less than methods, that
    is, a subclass inherits the accessors, since, in some sense, the
    accessors "belong" to the class. We are reluctant to say that subclasses
    inherit "methods" because a multi-method may not "belong" to any one
    class, and the analogy of inheritance implies the analogy of possesion.

I don't think that this slight flaw in the analogy is good grounds for
abandoning it, since it's such a powerful analogy.  Multi-methods are inherited
from the several classes they belong to, by all of the subclasses of each of
those classes.  I don't think this is stretching the analogy out of shape.

    What is important is that behavior, reflected in the availability of
    accessors and the participation in method lookup, is inherited.  What do
    you think of "Inheritance of Behavior" for a section title?

The document is already too vague.  I don't think we should be adding more
vague words like "behavior" if we can help it.  Everyone knows it is really
methods we are talking about, so we should say what we mean.