Can inheritance be replaced completely by composition?

Question

This question is NOT question like \"inheritence vs composition\".

I understand completely how inheritance differs from composition, I know the Lisk

Answer 1

Nice question ...

You may want to prefer inheritance over composition when you want to distinguish semantically between "A is a B" and "A has a B". E.g. class Car may have an Engine member (composition), but may be (i.e. inherit from) a Vehicle.

I think the distinction plays out in having to maintain the number of methods shared by your two classes. When you inherit, you only need to override those (virtual) functions in the base class that you really need to; if you were to use purely composition, you'd need to re-implement every method of your member class that's public.

Ultimately, the "best" method is the one that is most suitable for your current application.

Edit:

There's a small but succinct debate about it here: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?568744-When-to-use-inheritance

as well as a Wikipedia article(!) about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_over_inheritance#Drawbacks