shapes_inheritance.md

Certainly! Here's a simple exercise that tests your knowledge of writing a class and inheritance in Python:

Exercise: Creating a Shape Hierarchy

Create a Python program that models basic geometric shapes using classes and inheritance. Define a base class called Shape. Then, create two subclasses: Rectangle and Circle. Each class should have methods to calculate the area and perimeter (or circumference in the case of a circle) of the shape.

Here are the steps to complete the exercise:

1. Create a Shape class with the following methods:

   • area(): This method should return the area of the shape (implement it as a placeholder method).
   • perimeter(): This method should return the perimeter of the shape (implement it as a placeholder method).

2. Create a Rectangle class that inherits from Shape. The Rectangle class should have:

   • A constructor __init__(self, width, height) that initializes the width and height of the rectangle.
   • Overridden area() and perimeter() methods to calculate the area and perimeter of the rectangle.

3. Create a Circle class that inherits from Shape. The Circle class should have:

   • A constructor __init__(self, radius) that initializes the radius of the circle.
   • Overridden area() and perimeter() methods to calculate the area and circumference of the circle.

4. Instantiate objects of both the Rectangle and Circle classes and demonstrate the use of the area() and perimeter() methods to calculate and print the areas and perimeters (circumferences) of these shapes.

Example usage:

# Create a rectangle and calculate its area and perimeter
rectangle = Rectangle(5, 4)
print("Rectangle Area:", rectangle.area())
print("Rectangle Perimeter:", rectangle.perimeter())

# Create a circle and calculate its area and circumference
circle = Circle(3)
print("Circle Area:", circle.area())
print("Circle Circumference:", circle.perimeter())

This exercise will test your ability to define classes, use inheritance, and implement methods for calculating properties of different shapes. It's a great way to practice object-oriented programming concepts in Python.