Automated Delegation is a Viable Alternative to Multiple Inheritance in Class Based Languages

Abstract

Multiple inheritance is still a controversial feature in traditional object-oriented languages, as evidenced by its omission from such notable languages as Modula-3, Objective C and Java . Nonetheless, users of such languages often complain about having to work around the absence of multiple inheritance. Automating delegation, in combination with a multiple subtyping mechanism, provides many of the same benefits as multiple inheritance, yet sidesteps most of the associated problems. This simple feature could satisfy both the designers and the users of class based object oriented languages. In this paper, we discuss why automated delegation is desirable. We also present Jamie, a freeware preprocessor-based extension to Java that offers such an alternative.