OO Software Architecture - base class that everything inherits from. Bad/good idea?

I am reviewing a proposed OO software architecture that looks like this: Base Foo Something Bar SomethingElse Where Base is a static class. My immediate thought was that every object in any class will inherit all the methods in Base which would create a large object. Could this cause problems for a large system? The whole architecture is hierarchical.. the 'tree' is much bigger than this really. Does this sort of architecture have a name (hierarchical?!). What are the known pros and cons?

Mar 22, 2025 - 22:49
 0
OO Software Architecture - base class that everything inherits from. Bad/good idea?

I am reviewing a proposed OO software architecture that looks like this:

  • Base
    • Foo
      • Something
    • Bar
      • SomethingElse

Where Base is a static class.

My immediate thought was that every object in any class will inherit all the methods in Base which would create a large object. Could this cause problems for a large system? The whole architecture is hierarchical.. the 'tree' is much bigger than this really. Does this sort of architecture have a name (hierarchical?!). What are the known pros and cons?