Should Superclasses be Abstract?

In object-oriented design and languages, abstractness of classes is a concept whose relationship to other concepts is not yet fully understood and agreed upon. This paper clarifies the concept of abstractness and examines the relationship between abstractness and inheritance. It does this by discussing several aspects of the so-called abstract superclass rule, a design rule for object-oriented programming which requires that all superclasses be abstract. In the course of this discussion, we evaluate in which situations this rule should be considered beneficial.

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