Rabi Siddique
167 words
1 minutes
Why Composition over Inheritance?
2024-01-14

In object-oriented programming, the debate between using composition and inheritance is ongoing. Here are some key reasons why composition often outweighs inheritance:

  1. Reduced Coupling: Inheritance can lead to tightly coupled code, especially in systems with long inheritance chains. Modifications in a superclass can have unintended side effects on subclasses, which might depend on the superclass’s behavior. Composition, by contrast, encourages looser coupling between components, making the system easier to modify and maintain.

  2. Improved Testability: Testing with inheritance can be challenging since it is difficult to test subclasses in isolation without also involving their parent classes. This dependency complicates both the testing process and the test scripts. Composition enhances testability by allowing developers to test components independently using techniques like dependency injection.

  3. Stronger Encapsulation: Composition provides stronger encapsulation than inheritance. By using composition, internal components and data fields are better contained within each component. Subclasses in an inheritance hierarchy, however, often have access to the internal workings of their parent classes, which can compromise encapsulation and lead to fragile code structures.

Why Composition over Inheritance?
https://rabisiddique.com/posts/composition-over-inheritance/
Author
Rabi Siddique
Published at
2024-01-14