NOTE: This assignment is due at the beginning of the class period. This means that if you are even a minute late, you lose 20%. If you are worried about potentially being late, turn in your assignment ahead of time. Do this by submitting them to me during office hours or by sliding it under my office door. Do not send assignments to me through email or leave them in my departmental mail box.

As discussed in class, Java does not allow for multiple inheritance from Classes (but does allow for implementation of multiple Interfaces.) In contrast, other languages such as C++ do allow for multiple inheritance of Classes. This assignment explores the design trade-offs inherent in single versus multiple inheritance. It looks at benefits and costs from the perspectives of users of the language (software developers) and creators of the language (language developers).

Write a design comparison evaluation examining single and multiple inheritance from a conceptual standpoint and their implementation in Java and C++, respectively. In your comparison, be sure to describe the following:

• the general concept of Class inheritance in Object-Oriented languages,
• the benefits (if any) to software developers that are likely to accrue with the use of inheritance in general,
• the costs (if any) to software developers that are likely to be incurred by the use of inheritance in general,
• the benefits (if any) to language developers that are likely to accrue with the use of inheritance in general,
• the costs (if any) to language developers that are likely to be incurred by the use of inheritance in general,
• the primary conceptual differences between single and multiple inheritance,
• the primary implementation differences between single inheritance in Java and multiple inheritance in C++,
• the additional benefits (if any) to software developers that are likely to accrue with the use of multiple inheritance,
• the additional costs (if any) to software developers that are likely to be incurred by the use of multiple inheritance,
• the additional benefits (if any) to language developers that are likely to accrue with the use of multiple inheritance,
• the additional costs (if any) to language developers that are likely to be incurred by the use of multiple inheritance.

You may cover these points in any order that clearly conveys the information required.

Your comparison paper should be approximately three to five pages in length (roughly 80 characters per line, 50 lines per page). Note that this is a guideline range. Values somewhat outside this range are acceptable. However, if you go much over five pages, I may take off points for being excessively verbose. This page range does not include figures used in your explanations, which are encouraged and may take up any amount of space.

Turn in an electronic copy of this document as a PDF file by submitting it to the appropriate droxbox in D2L and a paper copy of this document at or prior to the start of the class period on the due date.