The runtime system sends an initialize message to every class
object
before the class receives any other messages and after its
superclass
has received the initialize message. [...]
...
But more importantly:
Note: Remember that the runtime system sends initialize to each
class
individually. Therefore, in a class’s implementation of the
initialize
method, you must not send the initialize message to its
superclass.
As I read it (and my experience does not contradict this), when you
first use an Employee method, +initialize is sent to Employee, and
serially to each member of its superclass chain, serially from the
top superclass down. Members of the chain that don't implement
+initialize pass their instance of the call up the inheritance chain,
which can result in a superclass of such a class getting +initialize
additional times.
So on first use of Employee, +initialize is sent to Person, and then
to Employee (which if it doesn't implement +initialize, amounts to
triggering Person's initialize on the instance [Employee class]).
-- F
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