Explaining inheritance: a code reusability perspective

  • Authors:
  • Robert Biddle;Ewan Tempero

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Computer Science, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand;Department of Computer Science, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

  • Venue:
  • SIGCSE '96 Proceedings of the twenty-seventh SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education
  • Year:
  • 1996

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Abstract

Programmers new to the object-oriented paradigm often have difficulty learning how to use inheritance properly. In this paper we introduce an approach to explaining inheritance that is based on understanding the nature of reusability. We show how the important aspect of inheritance is interface conformance, and explain the role this plays in supporting reusability. We then outline a method for determining when and how to use both single inheritance and multiple inheritance, and discuss the implications of our approach.