Providing multiple views for objects

The need for multiple views of an object is often encountered in software practice. This paper presents our experience in addressing this need under a software architecture known as the law-governed architecture. We introduce the notion of a surrogate object which allows an object to appear different and behave differently when used from different parts of a system. This concept requires some minor modifications to the classical inheritance-based object-oriented systems, mostly involving a judicious use of delegation. A concrete implementation of surrogates under the law-governed architecture is described and some applications of surrogates are briefly discussed.