spaghetti inheritance

[encountered among users of object-oriented languages that

use inheritance, such as Smalltalk] A convoluted

class-subclass graph, often resulting from carelessly

deriving subclasses from other classes just for the sake of

reusing their code. Coined in a (successful) attempt to

discourage such practice, through guilt-by-association with

spaghetti code.

[Jargon File]