I'm using object-oriented programming (OOP) and like it. For the problems described in the OP, I'm not encountering those! I want to write relatively simple c

I'm using object-oriented programming (OOP) and like it. For the problems described in the OP, I'm not encountering those! I want to write relatively simple code, thus, want to avoid tricky features of the software tools I use, and so far have been successful. But this desire means that I don't have deep experience with tricky aspects of OOP. So, YMMV. So far mostly my code looks just like it would have before OOP; I've created only a few OOP classes; and all of those are simple. I write a lot of functions but not many classes. Some things I do like: (1) Can have an array of classes and, then, can sort the array with whatever class properties want to use as the sorting keys. (2) Can serialize an instance of a class to a byte array, send the byte array via TCP/IP, and deserialize the result. Well, the OP notes some of the dangers of inheritance. I agree and saw the danger right away and, thus, in the code I write try not to use inheritance and so far have been fully successful. But, I can think of situations where inheritance could be useful and keep the work better organized than not using inheritance. But, I'd say: The main issue is just having humans understand the code, and for that, using inheritance or not, the main solution is just to document what is going on. Or, if the way around using inheritance is just having multiple copies of the same source code, then just document this fact so that when want to change one of the copies, likely change all the others, also. And, of course, generally should know all the places in the code base where that code, or some modification of it, is being used. Can solve such an issue with just documentation. Or we don't want to look to programming language syntax and features to solve all problems of meaning in that software, meaning better communicated with documentation. Gee, so far this is a polymorphic post since I didn't way what OOP language I'm using! So, I'm writing in Microsoft's Visual Basic .NET with their .NET Framework, ASP.NET (for Web pages), and ADO.NET (for using SQL Server). That Microsoft software is awash in classes, and that architecture seems to be working well. Yes, that Microsoft code is awash in inheritance, but mostly I just ignore that fact and regard it as more just documentation than actual software. I get by mostly ignoring inheritance because I don't use it directly in my code. In my project, the hard technical work was the applied math; it turns out, given the math, the corresponding code is simple.