26.9. Class Hierarchies and Inheritance in Software
This discussion of conceptual class hierarchies has not mentioned inheritance, because the discussion is focused on a domain model of things in the world, not software artifacts. In an object-oriented programming language, a software subclass inherits the attribute and operation definitions of its superclasses by the creation of software class hierarchies. Inheritance is a software mechanism to make superclass things applicable to subclasses. It supports refactoring code from subclasses and pushing it up class hierarchies. Therefore, inheritance has no real part to play in the discussion of the domain model, although it most definitely does when we transition to the design and implementation ...
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