If Inheritance is so bad, why does everyone use it? (buttondown.email)

submitted 7 months ago by armchair_progamer@programming.dev to c/programming_languages@programming.dev

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This essay says that inheritance is harmful and if possible you should "ban inheritance completely". You see these arguments a lot, as well as things like "prefer composition to inheritance". A lot of these arguments argue that in practice inheritance has problems. But they don't preclude inheritance working in another context, maybe with a better language syntax. And it doesn't explain why inheritance became so popular in the first place. I want to explore what's fundamentally challenging about inheritance and why we all use it anyway.

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[-] blackstampede@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 months ago

Obviously, it's not absolutely bad. I think the reason why it became very popular was because it allows you to reuse and extend functionality that already exists. This gives you a higher development velocity, which is obviously something that companies prioritize, and developers want to provide.

[-] BatmanAoD@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

Right, that's the third meaning he cites for inheritance.

[-] blackstampede@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago

Was half asleep when I wrote this lol

this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024

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