Using OO Classes :: instantiate or inherit?
So...just curious... for the people that OO here, do you prefer instantiating external classes to use them, or just inherit them? To be a little more specific, take a general tools class that just holds various utility methods, like database abstraction stuff, input sanitizing methods, stuff like that.
Building your actual page/application classes, would you just have your class extend the tool class, thereby giving direct access to it (well, protected and public methods/properties, at least), or rather instantiate it?
C# inherit
C# instantiated
especially if you're using the tools alot, it seems like it would be less efficient to keep instantiating and destroying objects rather than just inheriting.