Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!ctumey
From: ctumey@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Carol T Tumey)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: ??Bidirectional Inheritence??
Message-ID: <6957@uwm.edu>
Date: 14 Oct 90 23:22:43 GMT
Sender: news@uwm.edu
Reply-To: ctumey@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Carol T Tumey)
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Lines: 25


Recently I was involved in a conversation discussing the
various possiblities of handling inheritance in a multiple
inheritance system.  Out of the discussion came the topic of
bidirectional inheritence.  The person who suggested this
claimed that the concept of parents inheriting back from
their children is a proven idea yet could provide no 
references.  

In the small amount of reading I have done on OOP/OOD I have
not seen anything on the subject of parents inheriting
values from their children nor can I see the benfits of
such hierarchical incest :-)

Seriously, it seeems that inheriting characteristic up *and*
down the network would result in a loss of control of the
system and defeats some of the basic concepts of OOP such as
encapsulation, not to mention inheritence.

Does anyone have any opinions either way on the subject?  I
would be interested in your replies.

Thanks,
Carol Tumey
ctumey@csd4.csd.uwm.edu