Inheritance is a programming concept, often found in object-oriented programming (OOP), where a parent class’s properties and methods are passed on to its child classes. The parent class is referred to as the superclass, while the child classes which inherit from the superclass are known as its subclasses. This allows a programmer to reuse code, save development time, and keep larger programs organized and easy to maintain.
In an inheritance relationship, the superclass serves as the blueprint from which the subclasses are built. It contains all of the base functionality and definitions that the subclasses will inherit. When a programmer wants to add new features to a program, they can edit the superclass, and any subclasses which depend on it will be able to access the new code. This allows them to add features without having to manually write new code for each class.
Inheritance relationships can be seen as a type of relationship between classes, where the child classes are related to the parent class in some way. This type of relationship is important for creating programs which can be adapted quickly in the future, as changes to the superclass can be immediately felt by any subclass which is dependent on it.
Inheritance is an important concept for computer programmers to understand, as it helps them to create more efficient programs, save time in development, and keep large codebases organized. Additionally, by understanding inheritance, a programmer can more easily understand the relationship between classes and how they interact with each other.
