Superclasses and Subclasses

Often, an object of one class is an object of another class as well. The figure  lists several

simple examples of superclasses and subclasses—superclasses tend to be “more general”

and subclasses “more specific.” For example, a CarLoan is a Loan as are HomeImprovement-

Loans and MortgageLoans. Thus, in Java, class CarLoan can be said to inherit from class

Loan. In this context, class Loan is a superclass and class CarLoan is a subclass. A CarLoan

is a specific type of Loan, but it’s incorrect to claim that every Loan is a CarLoan—the Loan

could be any type of loan.