This section is about simple classes that inherit nothing—neither slots nor methods—from more general superclasses. Everything about these classes is given directly in their definitions, so they are the best starting point for programming with SICStus Objects.
The use of inheritance in defining classes is described in the next section. Classes that inherit properties from superclasses are called derived classes in some systems, such as C++. In general, the use of inheritance extends the properties of the simple classes in this section.