19.9. Encapsulation: Inheritance

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Encapsulation is one of the main concepts of Object Oriented Programming (OOP). It refers to the practice of hiding an object's implementation details and exposing only the methods and properties that are needed to interact with that object. This makes the code easier to understand and maintain, as the details of how an object works are hidden from the rest of the code.

To understand encapsulation, it is helpful to think of an object as a black box. You can interact with the black box through a defined interface (the public methods and properties), but you don't need to know what's going on inside the black box (the implementation details). This is encapsulation.

Encapsulation also allows you to change the implementation of an object without affecting the rest of the code. For example, you might decide to change the way data is stored inside the object, but as long as the interface remains the same, the rest of the code doesn't need to change.

Now, let's talk about inheritance. Inheritance is another fundamental concept of Object Oriented Programming. It allows you to create a new class that inherits the properties and methods of an existing class. The new class is called a subclass and the existing class is called a superclass.

Inheritance allows you to reuse existing code, which can save you a lot of time and effort. For example, if you already have an "Animal" class with properties like "name" and "age" and methods like "eat" and "sleep", and you want to create a "Dog" class, you can make "Dog" inherit from "Animal". Thus, "Dog" will automatically have the properties "name" and "age" and the methods "eat" and "sleep".

In addition, inheritance allows you to specialize classes. For example, you can add a "bark" method to the "Dog" class. This method wouldn't make sense in the "Animal" class, but it does in the "Dog" class.

It is important to note that inheritance should be used with care. While it is tempting to use inheritance to reuse as much code as possible, this can lead to a very complex class hierarchy that is difficult to understand and maintain. In general, it's a good idea to use inheritance only when there is a clear and logical "is a" relationship between classes. For example, a "Dog" is an "Animal", so it makes sense that "Dog" inherits from "Animal".

In summary, encapsulation and inheritance are two fundamental concepts of Object Oriented Programming that allow you to write code that is easier to understand, maintain and reuse. Encapsulation hides the implementation details of an object, while inheritance allows you to create new classes that inherit the properties and methods of existing classes.

Understanding these concepts is critical for anyone learning to program, and they will be covered in detail in our Logic Programming for Beginners course.

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7119.10. Encapsulation: Polymorphism