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What are the two things to avoid when using inheritance? Why?

1) Inflexibility and tight coupling, which can lead to code duplication and maintenance issues
2) Lack of encapsulation and increased complexity, which can make the code harder to understand and modify
3) Inefficient memory usage and slower performance, due to the overhead of inheritance
4) Difficulty in testing and debugging, as changes in the base class can affect the behavior of derived classes

1 Answer

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Final answer:

The two things to avoid when using inheritance are inflexibility and tight coupling, and lack of encapsulation and increased complexity.

Step-by-step explanation:

When using inheritance in programming, there are two things that should be avoided:

  1. Inflexibility and tight coupling: Using inheritance can lead to inflexible code and tight coupling between classes. This means that making changes to the base class can affect the behavior of derived classes, leading to code duplication and maintenance issues.
  2. Lack of encapsulation and increased complexity: Inheritance can result in a lack of encapsulation, making the code harder to understand and modify. It can also increase complexity, as there may be multiple levels of inheritance and dependencies between classes.

It's important to design inheritance hierarchies carefully to mitigate these issues and ensure the code remains flexible, maintainable, and easy to understand.

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