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What is fundamental?

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Message:

What is fundamental?

Posted by Mike Mannion on 23 Nov 1998, 12:40 AM

Such an interesting subject shouldn't be allowed to run aground!
I was kind of inspired by the following statement from Bill:

> I think Ralph is trying to get at a point I tried to make in
> my article. My ultimate (so far) epiphany about interfaces was
> that they were about something more fundamental
> than multiple inheritance.

For the sake of provocation, might I propose that the fundamental issue here is one of behaviour.
In terms of expressing what the behaviour of a category of objects (the term "class" is a touch loaded), we could say that a Java class requires the programmer to go overboard, since a non-trivial, unambiguous declaration of behaviour can only be made by means of an implementation.
On the other hand, a Java inteface is too weak, since the programmer can only declare method signitures (and constants), and no behaviour.

Thoughts?

- MM



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