17: Method Execution and Operation Escalation

1. Understanding method execution
   1. Many of a class's operations and accompanying methods are inherited from superclasses.
   2. When an inherited operation is called on an instance of the class, the Telescript engine searches the class and the class's superclasses to find the method to execute.
   3. The search follows canonical order--determined by the way superclasses are listed in each class definition.
   4. The first appropriate method yielded by the search is the method executed when the operation is called.
   5. A LIFO stack carries the arguments used for method execution.
2. Escalating an operation
   1. When a superclass's operation is overridden in a class, the overridden method is not executed in an instance of the class unless the operation is escalated using the "^" symbol.
   2. When an operation is escalated, the Telescript engine searches the superclasses of the current class to find the next higher method for the same operation.
   3. The stack carries the operation's arguments to the method that finally executes.
      1. Alternate arguments may be provided for escalation if they follow the "^" symbol enclosed in square brackets ([]).
   4. Typical operation escalation is chained: the same operation further up the inheritancy is defined to escalate itself, and so on, so a single escalation may result in hierarchical escalation a la initialization.

Generated by the sweat of Mike Boom's brow.