Status: IN
Composition's scalability advantage over inheritance is supported by quantitative evidence from two independent pattern categories: Decorator demonstrates that n independent embellishments require up to 2^n subclasses via inheritance but only n+1 classes via composition, while Bridge shows that M abstraction kinds × N implementation platforms require M×N classes without the pattern but only M+N with it. Together, these examples suggest that composition's superiority in managing combinatorial complexity holds across both structural decoration and abstraction-implementation separation, grounded in concrete class-count reductions rather than theoretical argument alone.
Two independent quantitative proofs of composition's advantage across different GoF categories
Depends on (SL): decorator-proves-composition-scalability, bridge-eliminates-class-explosion