interface, abstract, class,

down vote accepted

Interfaces An interface is a contract: the guy writing the interface says, "hey, I accept things looking that way", and the guy using the interface says "Ok, the class I write looks that way". An interface is an empty shell, there are only the signatures of the methods, which implies that the methods do not have a body. The interface can't do anything. It's just a pattern.

Abstract classes

Abstract classes, unlike interfaces, are classes. They are more expensive to use because there is a look-up to do when you inherit from them.

Abstract classes look a lot like interfaces, but they have something more : you can define a behavior for them. It's more about a guy saying, "these classes should look like that, and they have that in common, so fill in the blanks!".

1169 down vote accepted

Interfaces An interface is a contract: the guy writing the interface says, "hey, I accept things looking that way", and the guy using the interface says "Ok, the class I write looks that way". An interface is an empty shell, there are only the signatures of the methods, which implies that the methods do not have a body. The interface can't do anything. It's just a pattern.

extends is for extending a class.

implements is for implementing an interface

The difference between an interface and a regular class is that in an interface you can not implement any of the declared methods. Only the class that "implements" the interface can implement the methods. The C++ equivalent of an interface would be an abstract class (not EXACTLY the same but pretty much).

Also java doesn't support multiple inheritance for classes. This is solved by using multiple interfaces.

1169 down vote accepted

Interfaces An interface is a contract: the guy writing the interface says, "hey, I accept things looking that way", and the guy using the interface says "Ok, the class I write looks that way". An interface is an empty shell, there are only the signatures of the methods, which implies that the methods do not have a body. The interface can't do anything. It's just a pattern.