Does Java really support multiple inheritance or not?
Created May 4, 2012
John Mitchell Yes and no. The fact is that Java separates
implementation inheritance from interface
inheritance. Interface inheritance deals with the
"contract" which a class adheres to while implementation
inheritance deals with the reuse of code and
the contract which a class adheres to.
Java only allows "multiple inheritance" of interfaces. It does only allows single inheritance of implementation. This is a good bit different from e.g., C++ where both concepts are intermingled (which I think is quite ugly and needleslly complex).