Your chief Software designer has shown you a sketch of the new Computer parts system she is about to create. At the top of the hierarchy is a Class called Computer and under this are two child classes. One is called LinuxPC and one is called WindowsPC.
The main difference between the two is that one runs the Linux operating System and the other runs the Windows System (of course another difference is that one needs constant re-booting and the other runs reliably). Under the WindowsPC are two Sub classes one called Server and one Called Workstation. How might you appraise your designers work?
1) Give the goahead for further design using the current scheme
2) Ask for a re-design of the hierarchy with changing the Operating System to a field rather than Class type
3) Ask for the option of WindowsPC to be removed as it will soon be obsolete
4) Change the hierarchy to remove the need for the superfluous Computer Class.
Answer 103)
2) Ask for a re-design of the hierarchy with changing the Operating System to a field rather than Class type
This question is about the requirement to understand the difference between the "is-a" and the "has-a" relationship. Where a class is inherited you have to ask if it represents the "is-a" relationship. As the difference between the root and the two children are the operating system you need to ask are Linux and Windows types of computers.The answer is no, they are both types of Operating Systems. So option two represents the best of the options. You might consider having operating system as an interface instead but that is another story.
Of course there are as many ways to design an object hierarchy as ways to pronounce Bjarne Strousjoup, but this is the sort of answer that Sun will proabably be looking for in the exam. Questions have been asked in discussion forums if this type of question really comes up in the exam. I think this is because some other mock exams do not contain any questions like this. I assure you that this type of question can come up in the exam. These types of question are testing your understanding of the difference between the is-a and has-a relationship in class design.