It's said that composition is preferred over inheritance. Every single open source GUI toolkit however uses inheritance for the drawn widgets (windows, labels, frames, buttons, etc). I checked Qt, wxWidgets, and GTK+. Is there an example of a GUI toolkit (written in any language) that uses composition instead of inheritance to separate the various widgets?
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What is the problem that you're facing with those GUI Toolkits ?
I think, They derive from a common Widget base class so that they all expose a minimum interface. So you could write code that can work with any SpecializedWidgetType. I think this is a good use of inheritance..
Prefer composition to inheritance.. but do not shoehorn composition where inheritance is the right answer. There are always exceptions to a rule/guideline.
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No problem. I was just curious if there was an example. I suppose there isn't and your answer makes sense. – Anin Teger Jun 17 '10 at 00:49