px@unl.fctunl.rccn.pt (Joaquim Baptista (pxQuim)) (05/27/89)
Latelly, there was a lot of discussion on inheritance and its uses. I recalled that systems based on frames and their cousins, conceptual nets (or is it the other way around?) allow the definition of multiple relations between any pair of frames (or entities). I myself don't jump on the ability to define arbitrary relations, since I believe a newcome programmer feels tempted to use this more than necessary, and they are a costy thing to implement. However, a couple of ortogonal relations can straighten up a lot of concepts which with single or multiple inheritance allways seem messy. Does anyone know if any 'traditional' object oriented language has incorporated this issue? Compilation could make a big difference in the performance of such a system, since all the flexible frame systems I've heard about are implemented over LISP, and are really heavy. Some folks in here are implementing a frame system in Prolog, but I don't expect it will be lighter than the LISP version I've seen (KRL from carnegie Mellon). -- -------- Joaquim Manuel Soares Baptista | BITNET/Internet: px@host.fctunl.rccn.pt Dept. Informatica | UUCP: px@unl.uucp Universidade Nova de Lisboa | ARPA: px%host.fctunl.rccn.pt@mitvma.mit.edu 2825 Monte Caparica | PSI/VMS: PSI%(+2680)05010310::PX PORTUGAL | Sound: (+351) (1) 295 4464 ext. 1360