Visual Basic .NET Programming Language, The

Chapter 13. Inheritance

Often, types in a program share the same characteristics. For example, a program may contain types that represent a customer and an employee.

Class Customer
  Public Name As String
  Public Address As String
  Public City As String
  Public State As String
  Public ZIP As String

  Public CustomerID As Integer
End Class

Class Employee
  Public Name As String
  Public Address As String
  Public City As String
  Public State As String
  Public ZIP As String

  Public Salary As Integer
End Class

In this situation, both the Customer and Employee classes contain a number of identical fields. This is because the two classes each describe a person, and a person has certain characteristics, such as a name and address, that exist independent of whether or ...