[TYPES] Why cannot declare a super type dynamically?
"Xuhui Li" <xhli06-9Onoh4P/[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.science.types |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
[ The Types Forum, http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/types-list ] Dear All, As far as I know, the existing type systems allow the subtyping being declared in the defintion of the sub types but forbid the super type being declared after the subtype . For example, class A extends B. However, if a new type C is declared and it is found that conceputually C should be a supertype of A (assume that the fields of C don't occur in A but an injection of the fields can be defined) , we cannot declare A extends C after A has been already defined. Why cannot this happen? Will dynamically introducing a supertype threaten the safety of existing type system? Thanks for your attention. Best Regards Xuhui