C++ and COM do just that, don't they?

        Jochen

tblanchard at mac.com writes:

> I found myself sitting next to Ira Forman at an OOPSLA workshop in
> 1995.  At the time he was one of the main designers of IBM's SOM
> library.  It was something like his  3rd year presenting SOM.  We were
> talking about how he handles multiple inheritance and he said his
> solution was to basically copy the dispatch table (method dict if you
> like) into each class.
> 
> Partly because SOM allowed you to attach before, after, and around
> methods to arbitrary locations in the class hierarchy and the
> bookkeeping got too hairy if the point of dispatch was somewhere other
> than the attachment class.
> 
> So I have heard of it being done.  Sounds like the classic size v
> speed tradeoff.  I'm a bit worried that the size of the image will
> explode.