The Object-Oriented Thought Process, Fourth Edition

Conclusion

This chapter gives a basic overview of what inheritance and composition are and how they are different. Many well-respected OO designers have stated that composition should be used whenever possible, and inheritance should be used only when necessary.

However, this is a bit simplistic. I believe that the idea that composition should be used whenever possible hides the real issue, which might be that composition is more appropriate in more cases than inheritance—not that it should be used whenever possible. The fact that composition might be more appropriate in most cases does not mean that inheritance is evil. Use both composition and inheritance, but only in their proper contexts.

In earlier chapters, the concepts of abstract classes ...