Microsoft Word OpenIssuesInOO. doc

Support for prototypical concepts 

In the exploratory phase and perhaps also the structural phase, it might be useful to have 

support for prototypical concepts also. A language based on prototypical concepts should 

among others include the following mechanisms for describing concepts and generating 

instances of it: 

• 

It should be possible to describe a set of properties that phenomena in the extension 

may or may not have 

•  It should be possible to describe one or more prototypes representing typical 

phenomena in the extension of the concept. 

• 

New objects in the extension of the concept may be created by cloning one of the 

prototype objects.