Prothon Prototypes vs Python Classes

[Joe Mason]

In article <gandreas-1F419E.08473601042004 at news.mpls.visi.com>, Glenn Andreas wrote:
>> There certainly is a standard syntax for making objects.  I need to know
>> how to "duplicate an existing object".  Is it "obj.dup()"?
>> "obj.clone()"?  "duplicate obj"?  Most probably, the language (or
>> standard library) defines one of these, and I expect most objects to be
>> duplicated in the same way.
>> 
> It can be a bit more subtle than that in a prototype based system, since 
> there are two things that are different, but have nearly identical 
> results, but could both be considered "duplicate an object".
> 
> In general, you don't want to _duplicate_ the object, but rather use 
> that object as "prototype" for the new object.
> 
> First, you can make a new object that has all the same 
> slots/properties/attributes as the first object - let's just call that 
> "clone" for now (and we'll assume single inheritence, via a slot called 
> "__parent")

<snip example>

> and we'll make the second object that has first object as the __parent 
> (and we'll pretend that the syntax is "new <some expression>"

<snip other example>

This is certainly how Self does it.  Other prototype based languages
(such as Io) do not make this distinction.  In Io, you use "clone" to
make a new object whose parent is the object it was cloned from, and
that's it.

Joe