Re: viewpoints and multiple inheritance.(NEWBIE)
On a biology course i may think of a "cat IS_A animal", but at home I may
think of "cat IS_A pet". It seems that arguing against this being a
illustration of MI comes down to the following options:
a) One IS_A is a better choice than the other (dubious)
b) Only one IS_A exists at any given moment (I'm sure i could give an
example against this...)
c) Inheritance is misused (overused?) as a formalisation of IS_A
My personal opinion is that an answer will emerge through the incorporation
(not replacement) of a view of inheritance that I have seen in COM (oops
Microsoft ;) - an abstraction of interfaces with objects choosing to
implement those interfaces ( "cat" implements two interfaces/senses that
each have a IS_A relationship to "animal" and "pet" respectively). This is
seen in WordNet after all.
gareth