composition over inheritance java. 1436. composition over inheritance java

 
1436composition over inheritance java  The below paragraph is quoted from the book, "Thinking in Java" by Bruce Eckel

6. In my opinion, the Dependency Inversion Principle, when applied to Inheritance translates to "Favour composition over inheritance". 5 Reasons to Prefer Composition over Inheritance in Java On composition, a class, which desires to use the functionality of an existing class, doesn't inherit, instead it holds a reference of that class in a member variable, that’s why the name composition. The below paragraph is quoted from the book, "Thinking in Java" by Bruce Eckel. I have already chosen composition, and I am not ready to discuss this choice. fromJson. This is, infact preferred approach over abstract methods. , where Structure is in a HAS-A relationship with TypeA, TypeB and TypeC. The Entity Component System is an architectural pattern often used in v ideo game development. 6 Answers. A might have a C, and pass through methods. If the base class need to be instantiated then use composition; not inheritance. Use inheritance when such substitution is required, and composition when it is not. The first should use inheritance, because the relationship is IS-A. Using composition in DTOs is a perfectly fine practice. ```java /** Sets all edges to given size. Composition and Inheritance both are design techniques. 5. Lastly, anyone who uses inheritance to reuse implementation is doing it wrong. The composition is a java design way of implementing a has-a relationship. 1436. Note that the phrase is to favor composition over inheritance. One solution could be:Bloch argues that in the end both can be problematic, “There is no way to extend an instantiable class and add a value component while preserving the equals contract, unless you are willing to forgo the benefits of object-oriented abstraction”. An Example of Association, Composition, and Aggregation in Java Here is an example of composition and aggregation, in terms of Java Code. 0. Use inheritance when such substitution is required, and composition when it is not. What type should an array store when using composition over inheritance? When using inheritance, you can create two classes A and B that inherit from class C. Inheritance gives you all the public and protected methods and variables of the super-class. Instead of looking it in volume, this is the rule of thumb when it comes to inheritance in java (and any OO language for that matter). vor composition over inheritance” [2](Item 16) and provides a compelling example to support this. The new class is now a subclass of the original class. Both composition and inheritance are object-oriented. One justification for choosing composition in Java is the lack of support for multiple. In my opinion you can emulate all of the behavior of inheritance via composition. For example, instead of inheriting from class Person, class Employee could give each Employee object an internal Person object,. You add the behavior to the required class as an internal data field and gain the access to the required set of methods (capabilities) through this field. Design Patterns can be divided into: Creational Patterns. Everything we see is a composite of. Another common pattern that would use. In Go, composition is favored over inheritance. Inheritance cannot extend final class. Inheritance: a class may inherit - use by default - the fields and methods of its superclass. A preview of the full code as in the Intellij is as shown below: The output of the code is derived through composition. This is another benefit of composition. Particularly the dangers of inheritance and what is a better way in many cases. The car is created in a different context and then becomes a person property. Composition. The Composition Over Inheritance Principle; The SRP, LSP, Open/Closed, and DIP principles are often bundled together and called SOLID principles. avoids vtable-based dynamic dispatch when the number of trait implementations is small and known in advance. Concatenative inheritance is the process of combining the properties of one or more source objects into a new destination object. g. You can use composition, however, to give it the functionality. Nevertheless, if i need to provide examples, i will use Java as a reference. Instead of inheriting properties and. Nevertheless, if i need to provide examples, i will use Java as a reference. 5. There is also a very big correlation with "the industry standard languages happen to have a very rigid and inflexible concept of inheritance that intermingles the orthogonal aspects of subtyping and differential code-reuse". Even more misleading: the "composition" used in the general OO. a single responsibility) and low coupling with other objects. Erich Gamma lept onto the software world stage in 1995 as co-author of the best-selling. There are certain things that do require inheritance. 25 March 2020; java, effective java review, design, architecture, inheritance; Today we get to take on one of the core items of object-oriented programming, inheritance. 95% of the times instanceof can be replaced with a better design. 1. – Effective Java (Addison-Wesley, 2008), Joshua Bloch. You need to take a look a the definitions first. 4. That book was called Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software . Inheritance is a core part of what makes object-oriented. A lion is an. This echoes the advice to prefer composition over inheritance and to keep inheritance hierarchies shallow, with few layers of sub-classing. "Favor composition over inheritance" was popularized by the GOF design patterns book, but you need to understand the historical context - in. If it is there use inheritance. Aug 10, 2016. Inheritance and composition — along with abstraction, encapsulation, and polymorphism — are cornerstones of object-oriented programming (OOP). Lets say we have an interface hierarchy in both interfaces and implementations like below image. The idea with inheritance is to inherit traits, fields as well as methods from a parent class. For this, we say a car “has-a” steering wheel. Fig: Composition vs Inheritance. . In this tutorial, we’ll focus on Java’s take on three sometimes easily mixed up types of relationships: composition, aggregation, and association. Composition over inheritance is an old trend or even accepted state of the art in object oriented programming. In this Java tutorial we learn how to design loosely coupled applications with composition and why you should favor it above inheritance. Composition involves creating classes that contain instances of other classes, rather than extending existing classes. Both composition and inheritance are object-oriented programming concepts. It is the mechanism in Java by which one class is allowed to inherit the. In a more specific manner, a restricted aggregation is called composition. The Code. It wasn't. When there is a composition between two entities, the composed object cannot exist without the other entity. This pattern uses Java cloning to copy the. Lastly we examined the generated Java byte code produced by Kotlin. An example where you are forced to use inheritance is when you must interact with an external lib that expects a certain type. That being said, inheritance can, in some cases, be helpful to guarantee type safety or the existence of a reasonable fallback. + Composition & delegation: a commonly-used pattern to avoid the problems of subclassing. The biggest point of confusion and contention seems to be composition versus inheritance, often summarized in the mantra “favor composition over inheritance”. From the early days of object oriented programming, there is a practice of using (rather abusing) inheritance. The principle states that we should have to implement interfaces rather than extending the classes. effective java composition over inheritance advantages of composition by joshua bloch write cleaner code in java avoid using inheritance. The main difference: Class Adapter uses inheritance and can only wrap a class. Just wanted to point out that interface implementation is a kind of inheritance (interface inheritance); the implementation inheritance vs interface inheritance distinction is primarily conceptual and applies across languages - it's not based on language-specific notions of interface-types vs class-types (as in Java and C#), or keywords such as. But then I also have several sets of subclasses which inherit from the generic classes (Inheritance) and are in the same. What type should an array store when using composition over inheritance? When using inheritance, you can create two classes A and B that inherit. sort (comp);Another advantage of composition over inheritance is that it provides greater code reusability. By themselves they don't ensure the OCP. – Effective Java (Addison-Wesley, 2008), Joshua Bloch. 2) uses inheritance. 💖 Support the show by becoming a Patreonis a weekly show where we try to become more confident and excited about. Java, Inheritance is an important pillar of OOP (Object-Oriented Programming). In composition, you will no need to extend classes. Với nguyên lý Composition over Inheritance ta gom các phương thức chung vào một đối tượng riêng sau đó thực hiện tham chiếu các đối tượng này vào đối tượng mới được khởi tạo. This works because the interface contract forces the user to implement all the desired functionality. Downside. It would be even easier to use in Java, if there were language support for delegation. Bad Example of Inheritance. "Java composition is achieved by using instance variables that refers to other objects". By the end of this article, you. The composition over inheritance is a big deal in Java and C# that does not translate as well into Python. Each design pattern will assemble simple classes, unburdened by inheritance, into an elegant runtime solution. The composition is achieved by using an instance variable that refers to other objects. Everything is more or less clear with inheritance. Use an inheritance-based approach to write classes and learn about their shortcomings. Effective Java 3rd Edition, Item 18: Favor composition over inheritance describes an issue with using inheritance to add behavior to a class:. – MaxZoom. It shows how objects communicate with each other and how they use the. Favor Composition over Inheritance doesn't say never use inheritance. I understand composition may be favored over inheritance in some cases and understood other parts of item 18. Mantras Considered Harmful As a heuristic, ‘favor composition over inheritance’ is okay, however, I am not a fan of mantras. Today we get to take on one of the core items of object-oriented programming, inheritance. Let’s look at an example inspired by the book Effective Java by Joshua Bloch. "Composition over inheritance" advises that in these specific cases where either would a viable solution, that you should favor composition because it's not as likely for you to end up having painted yourself in a corner later on in the development cycle. guys any more comments regarding this approach please advise, any help will be appreciated. There is a problem in inheritance: a sub class’s behaviour depends on the implement detail of its super class. In this video, you can learn the difference between Composition and Inheritance in object oriented programming languages. Composition vs Inheritance. The consensus and all the arguments in favour of composition are also valid for JPA. First question. i. What we will go over in. Java Composition Youtube Video. You can use composition, however, to give it the functionality. public class Animal { private final. How is that? In both cases members are exposed to the subclass (in case of inheritance) or wrapper class (in the case of composition). Learn about Kotlin’s by keyword. Item 18 : Favor composition over inheritance. The examples are in Java but I will cover. Aggregation: The object exists outside the other, is created outside, so it is passed as an argument (for example) to the constructor. Follows is-a relationship. In OO design, a common advice is to prefer composition over inheritance. effective java composition over inheritance advantages of composition by joshua bloch write cleaner code in java avoid using inheritance. having data members in a base class is perfectly fine: not every base class needs to be an empty interface. Composition vs Inheritance. 1 Answer. My question was not a debate about whether to prefer composition over inheritance, or the other way around, as you seem to have taken it. This is also advocated in Effective Java, Item 16: Favor composition over inheritance. Sorted by: 1. Stephen Hurn has a more eloquent example in his articles “Favor Composition Over Inheritance” part 1 and part 2. Fist I have some generic classes is a HAS-A (or HAS-MANY) relationship (Composition). First question. Composition over Inheritance and Tight Coupling. visibility: With inheritance, the internals of parent classes are often. ApplicationException {} Inheritance lets you create exceptions with more specific, descriptive names in only one line. This approach is based on "prefere composition over inheritance" idea. 0. 5. I know the advantages of Composition over Inheritance but in some situation instances of the class are being created by framework using default constructor and we can not define constructor with parameter nor we can set attribute of the object using setter methods. Also, we would avoid making continuous super () calls in order to reach the top super class. Inheritance and composition relationships are also referred as IS-A and HAS-A. [2] interfaces - Why should I prefer composition over inheritance? - Software Engineering Stack Exchange Why should I prefer composition over inheritance? Asked 11 years, 9 months ago Modified 6 years, 8 months ago Viewed 69k times 138 I always read that composition is to be preferred over inheritance. java. Further Reading: Do you know one of the best practice in java programming is to use composition over inheritance, check out this post for detailed analysis of Composition vs Inheritance. For example, if order HAS-A line-items, then an order is a whole, and line items are parts. b1 = b1; } public static class BBuilder extends ABuilder { BBuilder () { super (); } } } This solution won't work if parent class has a @Builder annotation as well. Simple rules: A "owns" B = Composition : B has no meaning or purpose in the system without A. You first create an object, the vehicle; for our case, we have a Benz. . Prefer Composition over Inheritance. If you combine the concept of composition with the encapsulation concept, you can exclude the reused classes from your API. g 1. By establishing a relationship between new and existing classes, a new class can inherit or embed the code from one or more existing classes. But "composition over inheritance" would say that all of your users should contain a MyConnections instance, not inherit from it. For example, an accelerator pedal and a steering wheel share very few common traits, yet both. 3. A class that inherits from another class can reuse the methods and fields. The bridge pattern is an application of the old advice, “prefer composition over inheritance“. It enables the creation of a new class that is a modified version of an existing class, promoting code reusability and simplifying the structure of your programs. Composition Over Inheritance Principle. Either you extend a class, either you don't. The major reason behind having this notion is to use override feature to modify behavior if required and to. “Favor composition over inheritance” is a design principle that suggests it’s better to compose objects to achieve polymorphic behavior and… 3 min read · May 19 See more recommendationsPrefer using composition over inheritance when you need to reuse code and the types don’t have an “is a” relationship. Composition and Inheritance both are design techniques. การที่เราจะนิยามว่าสิ่งหนึ่งสืบทอดจากสิ่งหนึ่งมันไม่เข้ากับความเป็นจริงทางการพัฒนาซอฟร์แวร์ครับ เพราะถ้า. That's entirely the wrong motivation to base your decision on. Most designers overuse inheritance, resulting in large inheritance hierarchies that can become hard to deal with. A related cause of fragility in subclasses is that their superclass can acquire new methods in. g Doc so need some way to differentiate. Cars and trucks both have steering and acceleration, but a truck isn't a car, and shouldn't inherit behavior from it just because some of the implementation is shared. Prefer Composition over Inheritance. These are the reasons most often touted for choosing composition over inheritance. There are many advantages of using composition, couple of them are : You will have full control of your implementations. 4. Composition is just a "has a" relationship, while inheritance Is a "is a" relationship. Favor composition over inheritance is very. eg: Bathroom HAS-A Tub Bathroom cannot be a Tub 3. When you want to "copy"/Expose the base class' API, you use inheritance. Let’s take a single design problem and watch how this principle works itself out through several of the classic Gang of Four design patterns. Composition over Inheritence with GUI. That's a bold statement, considering that reusing implementations is inevitable in inheritance. Composition is a special case of aggregation. The shown approach is based on the principle of favor composition over inheritance. Share. Without knowing what both classes do or represent, it is impossible to decide whether one 'is a' subtype of the other, but let me remark that in "Effective Java", Joshua Bloch recommends to prefer composition over inheritance in most situations, since inheritance provides your new class with an interface that may be too large, or out of its. Fig: Composition vs Inheritance. Services. I would encapsulate all of the business logic into a new class BusinessLogic and have each class that needs BusinessLogic make. You shouldn't use inheritance given that you don't want push_back, push_front, removeAt. This taxpayer interface will have a getTaxRate () method which needs to be implemented by all of the child classes. This is often described as an is-a. And the super class’s implementation may change from release to. In OOP, inheritance is the methodology by which an object. Everything we see is a composite of. The Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle is a common principle across programming paradigms, but it is especially important in OOP. In this case you are mixing input filter with output filter to create artificial bi-directional filter parent. In Object-Oriented programming, an Object communicates to another object to use functionality and. One of the best practices of Java programming is to “favor composition over inheritance”. package com. In general, object composition should be favored over inheritance. What is the best practice when we instantiate an Apple object? Should I construct the fruit object internally without. – MrFox. Factory pattern - this is quite an architectural issue and this pattern should be the answer for Your problem. Item18: 復合優先於繼承. Objective C allows you to forward messages to another object, probably other message based languages like Smalltalk can do it too. The Effective Java chapter you refer to argues to prefer the use of standard functional interfaces, it seems, in more or less in the same spirit as the well-known advice to favor composition over inheritance (found, incidentally, in the Go4 book 1) - as a general design heuristic. 1. An example where you are forced to use inheritance is when you must interact with an external lib that expects a certain type. 1. Composition is just an alternative that. Why use inheritance in java. Generic classes: Structure, TypeA, TypeB, TypeC, etc. Learn about delegation patterns. Basically composition is a stronger form of aggregation. We implement the inheritance whenFor example, in Java Swing this is pattern is used extensively and it makes it very complicated to customize widgets. Go to react. Java, Inheritance is an important pillar of OOP (Object-Oriented Programming). On the other hand, Composition is the mechanism to reuse code across classes by containing instances of other classes that implement the desired functionality. and Bloch fundamentally is an implementation decision. First of all, Java 8 introduced Default Methods, which is in fact multi-inheritance in Java. 19]: ". BTW, You should always prefer Composition over Inheritance in Java, it not just me but even Joshua Bloch has suggested in his book Effective Java, which is a great resource to learn how to do things in the right way in Java. Composition over inheritance. Composition is a way of building complex objects by combining smaller, simpler objects. Because of the above reason, I conclude myself that the only time using composition is better when there are multiple inheritances, or when I need to share behaviors which vary and do not belong to one class family. Just think of it as having an "is-a" or a "has-a" relationship. Java doesn’t allow multiple inheritance but by using composition we can achieve it easily. In algebra, given two functions, f and g, (f ∘ g) (x) = f (g (x)). If the parent class can further have more specific child types with different functionality but will share common elements abstracted in the parent. *; class Actor { public void act () {} } class HappyActor. there are use cases for each and trade-offs to make for choosing one over the other. The biggest point of confusion and contention seems to be composition versus inheritance, often summarized in the mantra “favor composition over inheritance”. We cover how to instantiate a class. Others: 1. 3. Inheritance comes with polymorphism. What is composition. According to the design concept, the composition should be preferred over inheritance to get a better level of design flexibility. In inheritance, one class is a subclass of another. Favor Composition Over Inheritance. From Effective Java 2nd Edition, Item 16: Favor composition over inheritance: There are a number of obvious violations of this principle in the Java platform libraries. Composition involves creating classes that contain instances of other classes, rather than extending existing classes. a single responsibility) and low coupling with other objects. Mantras Considered Harmful As a heuristic, ‘favor composition over inheritance’ is okay, however, I am not a fan of mantras. Effective Java 2nd Edition, Item 16: Favor composition over inheritance: Inheritance is appropriate only in circumstances where the subclass really is a subtype of the superclass. It promotes smaller, more focused classes and smaller inheritance hierarchies. 2. Inheritance: a class may inherit - use by default - the fields and methods of its superclass. IS-A relationship is unidirectional, which means we can say that a bulb is. And the super class’s implementation may change from release to. Types of inheritance in java: a. In this interview, Erich Gamma, co-author of the landmark book, Design Patterns, talks with Bill Venners about two design principles: program to an interface, not an implementation, and favor object composition over class inheritance. Favor Composition Over Inheritance. Favoring composition over inheritance increases the flexibility and modularity of your code. As to why composition is preferred over. Association in Java defines the connection between two classes that are set up through their objects. For example – a kiwi is a fruit; a bulb is a device. It can do this since it contains, as a private, encapsulated member, the class or. Use. It is the mechanism in Java by which one class is allowed to inherit the features (fields and methods) of another class. Favor composition over inheritance is one of the popular object-oriented design principles, which helps to create flexible and maintainable code in Java and other object-oriented languages. The below paragraph is quoted from the book, "Thinking in Java" by Bruce Eckel. In this interview, Erich Gamma, co-author of the landmark book, Design Patterns, talks with Bill Venners about two design principles: program to an interface, not an implementation, and favor object composition over class inheritance. A design based on object composition will have less classes, but more objects. Of course, this could be Ruby, Java, C# or any object-oriented language. OOP allows objects to have relationships with each other, like inheritance and aggregation. The member objects of your new class are typically private, making them inaccessible to the client programmers who are using the class. Composition is more flexible and is a means to designing loosely. In my opinion…In Java, a Has-A relationship is otherwise called composition. If you are not sure whatever or not composition provides better reusability, "Prefer composition over inheritance" is a good heuristic. Objective C allows you to forward messages to another object, probably other message based languages like Smalltalk can do it too. In inheritance, Mixin plays a major role. As your example demonstrates, interfaces are often a useful tool for using composition instead of inheritance. If you want to reuse code composition is always the right way to go. Inheritance is more rigid as most languages do not allow you to derive from more than one type. Erich Gamma lept onto the software world stage in 1995 as co-author of the best-selling book Design. Composition is an alternative to inheritance, where a class can. With composition, it's easy to change. In inheritance, you will need to extend classes. In this post, we'll examine the fundamentals of Java inheritance and look at its benefits for OOP. The Composition Over Inheritance Principle. Composition over Inheritance 意为优先考略组合,而不是继承。有些程序员没懂,有些程序员把它奉为真理与黄金法则。 前日在做游戏开发(和我白天的工作无关,兴趣爱好而已),在对游戏对象建模时,我对这句话有了新的理解。Composition并不总是比Inheritance好。The main disadvantage of Composition is that you need to wrap (duplicate) all the public methods of the private List if you need to present the same interface, in Inheritance you have all of them already available, but you can't override any of them that was made not overridable (in C# it means the method should be marked 'virtual', in Java. I am a complete beginner so forgive my ignorance. 1_ Before implementing. Bridge Design Pattern in Java Example. Fist I have some generic classes is a HAS-A (or HAS-MANY) relationship (Composition). Constantly being on the lookout for partners; we encourage. Design and document for inheritance or else prohibit it. A "uses" B = Aggregation : B exists independently (conceptually) from A. For example, a car is a kind of vehicle. Sorted by: 73. In contrast, Composition is a restricted Aggregation, which means as per aggregation, it allows the relationship between the two classes, but the objects are. . Cons: May become complex or clumsy over time if more behavior and relations are added. Your first way using the inheritance makes sense. The following is an example of "composition": public class Car { Engine engine; // Engine is a class } But is it still called "composition" if we are using primitive data. Inheritance is a core part of what makes object-oriented great and powerful when used correctly. Over the years, the Java world reached the consensus that, in general, you should prefer composition over inheritance for plain Java classes. The saying “Favor object composition over class inheritance” suggests that, in many scenarios, the composition can be a more flexible and maintainable approach. 4 hours ago · This course is divided into six meticulously crafted sections, each focusing on a core aspect of Object-Oriented Programming: Introduction to OOP: Dive into the basics of OOP, exploring its advantages and disadvantages, and understand the fundamental concepts like Objects, Classes, Abstraction, Encapsulation, Inheritance, and. In this interview, Erich Gamma, co-author of the landmark book, Design Patterns, talks with Bill Venners about two design principles: program to an interface, not an implementation, and favor object composition over class inheritance. Inheritance is about expressing relationships, not about code reuse. So with composition (note this isn't necessarily "Realm" composition, just an example, since it looks like Realm has to use some weird form of interface-composition), I'd have a class like below: public class GermanShepherd { public Animal animal; public Dog dog; // Generate a bunch of delegate methods here }Composition vs inheritance refers to two major concepts in object-oriented programming. Question 4: Why Inheritance is used by Java Programmers? ( detailed answer) Answer: Inheritance is used for code reuse and leveraging Polymorphism by creating a type hierarchy. Here's a thread on the subject: Advantages of composition over inheritance in Java. So we need several other tricks. All that without mentioning Amphibious. Inheritance is a core part of what makes object-oriented great and powerful when used correctly. We can achieve multiple inheritance using composition: Java doesn’t allow multiple inheritance: Composition does not create a hierarchy of classes:. For example, an accelerator pedal and a steering wheel share very few common traits, yet both. Open-closed Principle in ActionIt reveals a problem with "favoring composition over inheritance"; most languages lack a delegation feature, and we end up writing boilerplate. One score (minus five) years ago, in the age of yore and of our programming forefathers, there was written a little book. The composition is a design technique in java to implement a has-a relationship. Also: In JS, the essence of concatenative inheritance is often masked by the common name “mixins”. There are several reasons which favor the use of composition over. Making a strategy - easier for others to inject a behaviour. #### Objectives + Subclassing & inheritance: superclass inheritance is the source of several problems that we'll examine in this reading. You must have also heard to use Composition over Inheritance. Composition. It is safe to use inheritance within the same package, but, it is dangerous to use inheritance cross packages. Inheritance among concrete types of DTOs is a bad practice. 1. change to super class break subclass for Inheritance 2. " If composition and inheritance both just mean adding to a list of messages that an object responds to, then they are equal by definition. Object composition can be used as an alternative or a complement to inheritance, depending on the situation and the design goals. Aug 10, 2016. As has been said, really discuss composition over inheritance. Any optimizations enabled by inheritance are incidental. This question is basically language-unspecific, but directed at languages which use OOP and have the possibility to create GUIs. A lot of the problems with Java-style inheritance go away if you don't have Java-style inheritance! – Field: a named property of some type, which may reference another object (see composition) Method: a named function or procedure, with or without parameters, that implements some behavior for a class. Pros: Allows polymorphic behavior. Inheriting from ordinary concrete classes across package. A team of passionate engineers with product mindset who work along with your business to provide solutions that deliver competitive advantage. Of course, there are traits. Inheritance allows an object of the derived type to be used in nearly any circumstance where one would use an object of the base type. Inheritance is used at its best, when its used to force some features down to its. Class Hierarchy design for optional attribute. One should often prefer composition over inheritance when designing their systems. The Composition is a way to design or implement the "has-a" relationship whereas, the Inheritance implements the "is-a" relationship. But do you know why it is said so? More impo. A composition establishes a “has-a” relationship between classes. 1. What I think is there should be a second check for using inheritance. Java borrowed the interface concept from objective-c protocols, and funnily objective-c. It in this scenario, that the famous GoF principle "Favor composition over inheritance" is applied, that is use inheritance when and only when you model an "is-a" relationship;. Composition is used when there is a has-a relationship between your class and the other class. I have read Item 16 from Effective Java and Prefer composition over inheritance? and now try to apply it to the code written 1 year ago, when I have started getting to know Java. "Composition over inheritance" is a short (and apparently misleading) way of saying "When feeling that the data (or behaviour) of a class should be incorporated into another class, always consider using composition before blindly applying inheritance". Inheritance is more rigi. By the way, Composition is also very much preferred in object-oriented design over inheritance, even Joshua Bloch has stated its.