Principlev1
Design inheritance chains to be shallow rather than deep to
Design inheritance chains to be shallow rather than deep to minimize fragility when parent-level properties change.
Why This Is a Principle
Derives from Catastrophic failures in complex systems rarely result from (failures in complex systems result from alignment of multiple failures) and The behavior of a system arises from its structure, not from (system behavior arises from structure). This is the 'fragile base class' insight applied as design guidance: shallow hierarchies reduce the cascading impact of changes. Prescriptive, actionable, applies across organizational and knowledge systems.