Inheritance and Object Evolution in Oracle 9i

One of the fundamental features of most object-oriented languages is inheritance. It is of prime importance in Java, for example, in that everything (except primitives) ultimately is a subclass of, or inherits from, objects. Much of the criticism of the object-relational features in Oracle 8i has centered on the lack of support for inheritance. Inheritance, however, is only one way that a class can be reused. Composition, which is supported by Oracle 8i, is at least as important. Nonetheless, inheritance is often considered a hallmark of object-orientation, and it is the most significant new feature in Oracle 9i.

Object evolution, the ability to alter existing objects, is another important feature ...

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