Question

1. Describe a real life scenario that can be modeled with inheritance. Then, explain why inheritance is a better model for your scenario than polymorphism.
2. Describe a real life scenario that can be modeled with polymorphism. Then, explain why polymorphism is a better model for your scenario than inheritance.

Answer 1

1)

Let us assume that there is a base class called Human.

Now, Human could be either Man or Woman. Hence, Man and Woman are the subclasses of class Human.

Now, all humans share common attributes such as eyes, ears, brain, legs. Functions such as walk, talk, think, sleep etc.

Hence, every Man and Woman would inherit the properties of Human class. However, there are certain attributes specific to Man or Woman. For example, Man has attributes like Adam's apple whereas Woman have attributes like breasts. Apart from that Woman can have a function like GiveBirthToNewHuman().

Clearly, this model could not be represented using Polymorphism since Man and woman do not share common functionalities.

2)

Now, both Man and Woman achieved some polymorphic capabilities which they could act differently upon depending on the input. For example, the functionality  "ConsumeThroughMouth" could be different for different input. If the input is food, then additional logic is used to represent that teeth is used to grind the food. If the input is water, then the function represents to use lips to swallow it.

This is a classic example of polymorphism.