When in doubt, it is usually better to [prefer composition over inheritance][1]. Still, that is just a heuristic, not a law, and asking if this heuristic applies to your specific case is definitely justified. Here is a simple argument why I think you should prefer composition in this case: if you want to keep your design open to make `Drawable` a base class of certain more specific "drawables" **inside your library** (like 2D or 3D drawables, or OpenGL vs. DirectX drawables, or some other kind of *technical* classification), use composition. That will allow it to let the technical inheritance hierarchy stay orthogonal with any kind of domain specific inheritance hierarchy outside your library, where `ProgramObject` may be the base class of certain domain specific classes (like a player character, or a vehicle, or some kind of other object). This [article here][2] calls these aspects different **dimensions**: > When you have a situation where either composition or inheritance will > work, consider splitting the design discussion in two: > > - The representation/implementation of your domain concepts is one dimension > - The semantics of your domain concepts and their relationship to one another is a second dimension > > In general, inheriting within one of these dimensions is fine. The > problem becomes when we forget to separate the two dimensions, and > start inheriting across inter-dimensional boundaries. And this is exactly what would happen when you start to inherit a `ProgramObject` from a `Drawable`: you would mix up the "drawing" dimension with domain concepts ("dimensions"), which can easily lead to a very unflexible design, where one will run into trouble when trying to separate technical and domain specific concerns. Let me add that there scenarios where inheriting from `Drawable` in an application context can make sense - when the library is designed to allow specific drawables (seen as extensions in the technical dimension) in an application. But I guess you would not call this subclass a `ProgramObject` anymore. [1]: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/134097/why-should-i-prefer-composition-over-inheritance [2]: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/composition-vs-inheritance-how-choose