On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 08:20:46 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 13:39:53 UTC, Simen Kjærås wrote:
<snip>
Thanks for the extra detail.
Is there a solid reason to ever use an interface over an
abstract class? (Other than multiple inheritance).
I'm such a noob at anything related to OO.
The way I look at it: an interface is a guarantee. By saying
interface A { void foo()}
class B: A {}
class C: A {}
void bar(A a) {}
you guarantee that every class that implements interface A has a
function foo and
and bar can be called with anything that implements interface A.
This is completely unrelated to inheritance.
An abstract class is an implementation, most likely a base class.
By saying
abstract class A {void foo()}
class B: A {}
class C: B {}
void bar(A a) {}
you express that you want bar to be called with any subclass of A.
e.g. a bitmap button inherits from button which inherits from
abstract class widget and implements the signal/slot interfaces.
Another pattern is design by introspection.
An interface defines what something _is_,
by introspection defines what something _CanDo_.
That's to say: I don't care if foo is actually (or inherits from)
an InputRange as long as it behaves like it.
