multiple inheritance in ontolingua

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Date: Wed, 25 May 94 09:43:28+010
From: ronny@zeppo.logica.co.uk (Ronny)
Message-id: <9405250843.AA29539@zeppo.logica.co.uk>
To: ontolingua@HPP.Stanford.EDU
Subject: multiple inheritance in ontolingua

When describing our ontology, it happens that we introduce a multiple-
inheritance conflict. As far as we know, there is no construction in ontolingua
to solve this problem, i.e. to enforce the target language to decide in an
unambiguous way when this problem arises unless you know it beforehand and
specify the property that you want explicitly at the level where the problem
occurs.

One approach would be that this problem is decided
by the target language (e.g. C++, CLOS...(they decide anyway)), but our client,
the European Space Agency, would like an ontology to be unambiguously defined,
so that future developers of knowledge agents know exactly how the shared
ontology is implemented in a knowledge agent.

We would like very much to know what the point of view of the ontolingua
developers and users regarding this problem is...

Thanks for your comments!!

	Ronny Timmermans.