A magnificent feature of classes in the .Net Framework is inheritance. To inherit means that a programmer can create one base class with which to create objects–think generic things like “clock,” “person,” and “job.” Then, you can make more specific objects like “grandfather clock,” “scientist” or “lion-tamer.” Since grandfather clock is a type of clock, you don’t have to rewrite everything. You can use your old clock class and jazz it up with a pendulum, say, or a wooden dark-stained casing. All you have to do is link the two.
I can’t even tell if what I’m writing sounds confusing or not. That’s how far down the rabbit hole I am right now.
But even if my first paragraph is perplexing, let me tell you, it’s a heckuva lot clearer to me than the exercises from earlier last week. I was having trouble looping through arrays of words and taking out the two middle letters. But creating classes(think blueprints) and then making different instances of the classes–this stuff makes sense to me.
Instead of solo exercises, we were randomly paired up. I was joined with a budding programmer from Queens with a sweet ponytail named Will. We banged out our exercises, making several different bank accounts using the inheritance principal. We got through the work in short order, just a couple of hours, and then went over some of the exercises that were assigned over the weekend.
All in all, a fun day.
From Retail to Programming 