25 years ago, when I was trying to write some sort of library to
go with Walter's C++ compiler, I had a wish, and it still pops
into my head from time to time.
What I wanted was functions that were declared in a base class as
'cumulative', or something similar. They would have been
generally like virtual functions, except that any derived class
that wanted to do something extra - as opposed to something
different, would simply define an 'extend', and just specify the
extra code. The compiler would then automatically add a call to
the same function in whatever base class last defined or extended
the method.
extend void foo() // Declared in base class as cumulative void
foo()
{
(cast(BaseClass) this).foo(); // Compiler does this for you
// similar to changing a light
bulb ;=)
// the extra stuff
}
I think also that it might be necessary for the base class
function to return on behalf of the derived method as opposed to
to it.
Does this make any sense?
Steve
