5 replies to this topic

[johnsonk]

Hello,

I'm quite new to programming and working on a small project to familiarise myself with inheritance.

My project is on a simulation of a simple ocean world. There are two types of creature Plankton and Fish. Fish have two subtypes – shark and sardine.

The program holds a collection of creatures. The idea is that Sharks can eat Sardines and Sardines can eat Plankton, this would delete the corresponding creature from the collection.

In practice would I have a single “eat” method in class Fish that accepts type creature, or "eat" methods in the sub classes that accept type sardine or plankton.

[johnsonk]

sorry the title should be
Should I make one method in the super class or 2 in the sub classes?

[WingedPanther]

Normally, I would have eat as a method of fish that is implemented by shark and sardine. Plankton shouldn't have to know that it can be eaten.

[johnsonk]

Thanks for the reply WingedPanther.

Am I right in saying that would mean that Fish would be an interface?

regards,
Kyle

[WingedPanther]

It depends on how you build Fish, and in what language. For Java, most likely. For C++, maybe not (as interfaces are just standard inheritance of parent classes that have no data members).

[johnsonk]

Yeah the program would be in java.

The only problem is that I wouldn't want an object of type sardine to be able accept type shark in its eat method, being a creature.