[Mono-list] Re: Is Objective-C support possible?

Thomas F. Burdick tfb@OCF.Berkeley.EDU
Fri, 15 Feb 2002 11:56:53 -0800


Martin Coxall writes:
 > > Interfaces donīt bring implementation, mix-ins are more like multiple
 > > inheritance just for methods...
 > 
 > Mixins shouldn't bring implementation either, else you break encapsulation
 > (there's a great rant on this in Gang of Four). If the Objective-C people
 > can't understand good OO design, then it's no suprise it never took off.
 > 
 > In any case the CLR is designed to avoid that by making its requirement of
 > multiply inherited classes be abstract, so if you want broken OO via impure
 > Mixins, I wouldn't expect the CLR to ever support that. ILX would still
 > support the CLR notion of single inheritance, multiple interfaces.

You're talking about interfaces, not mixins.  The term came from the
Flavors object system for Lisp, and mixins *do* come with
implementations.  They're little classes that aretn't terribly useful
by themselves, but when mixed in with a substantial class, add
functionality.

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