Reusing Objects
Perhaps the primary reason that inheritance and composition exist is object reuse. In short, you can build classes (which ultimately become objects) by utilizing other classes via inheritance and composition, which in effect, are the only ways to reuse previously built classes.
Inheritance represents the is-a relationship that was introduced in Chapter 1, “Introduction to Object-Oriented Concepts.” For example, a dog is a mammal.
Composition involves using other classes to build more complex classes—a sort of assembly. No parent/child relationship exists in this case. Basically, complex objects are composed of other objects. Composition represents a has-a relationship. For example, a car has an engine. Both the engine and the ...
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