When and How to Use Inheritance

The mechanism of inheritance is provided in some form by most modern programming languages. However, its improper use can lead to brittle, unnecessarily inflexible architectures that sacrifice encapsulation for little or no gain. This should not, however, lead a developer to conclude that inheritance is bad, or even that it should be used in a minimal, last-resort way. The real question is: what is inheritance good for, and when should it be used?