Inheritance Adjustment in System Design: Tailoring Base Class Characteristics for Specialized Classes

Need for Inheritance Adjustment in System Design:

Inheritance Adjustment in system design refers to the process of refining or modifying the inherited characteristics (attributes and behaviors) of a base class to better suit the requirements of a specific derived class. The need for inheritance adjustment arises due to the following reasons:

1. Specialization:

   • Reason: Derived classes may have specialized requirements or additional features that are not present in the base class.
   • Example: In a system representing various vehicles, a base class Vehicle might have attributes like speed and capacity. The derived class Car could specialize by adding attributes like numberOfDoors and methods like accelerate.

2. Restriction:

   • Reason: Sometimes, it is necessary to restrict or limit the access to certain features inherited from the base class.
   • Example: Consider a base class Employee with a method calculateSalary. In the derived class Intern, the calculateSalary method might be adjusted to restrict access or override it with a different implementation.

Inheritance Adjustment Process:

1. Method Overriding:

   • Description: Inheritance adjustment often involves overriding methods inherited from the base class in the derived class.
   • Example: In the base class Animal, there might be a method makeSound(). In the derived class Cat, the makeSound() method can be overridden to produce a specific cat sound.

2. Adding New Attributes or Methods:

   • Description: Derived classes may need additional attributes or methods that are not present in the base class.
   • Example: If a base class Shape has attributes like width and height, a derived class Circle might need to add a new attribute radius and a method calculateArea specific to circles.

3. Access Control Adjustment:

   • Description: Adjusting access modifiers to control the visibility of attributes or methods inherited from the base class.
   • Example: If a base class has a protected method, a derived class might adjust the access control to make it private or public based on the specific requirements.

Example:

Consider a simplified example of a base class Person in a system, and a derived class Student that requires adjustment:

class Person:
    def __init__(self, name, age):
        self.name = name
        self.age = age

    def displayDetails(self):
        print(f"Name: {self.name}, Age: {self.age}")

class Student(Person):
    def __init__(self, name, age, studentID):
        # Adjusting the constructor by calling the base class constructor
        super().__init__(name, age)
        self.studentID = studentID

    # Adjusting the method to include student-specific details
    def displayDetails(self):
        super().displayDetails()
        print(f"Student ID: {self.studentID}")

# Example Usage:
person = Person("John Doe", 25)
person.displayDetails()

print("\n")

student = Student("Alice Smith", 20, "S12345")
student.displayDetails()

In this example, the Student class adjusts the inheritance by calling the base class constructor using super() and overriding the displayDetails method to include student-specific details. This demonstrates the need for and implementation of inheritance adjustment in system design.