I have heard that when you have a subclass, you are supposed to initialize the superclass with the same init function from within the subclass's init. What I mean is that the subclass's init should call [super init] and the subclass's initWithFrame should call [super initWithFrame]. Why is this? Why does calling the super's init from a subclass's initWithFrame result in an infinite loop?

If this is required, then does this mean I can't create a new init function within a subclass such as initWithPoint and have that call super's init or initWithFrame simply because the super class doesn't have initWithPoint? I guess the heart of the question here is simply why it's improper to call a different super class, something that's confusing me possibly because of my c++ background?