posted 18 years ago
Hi,
Welcome to JavaRanch!
Multiple inheritance has not been "removed" from Java; Java has never had multiple inheritance. It was never added in the first place. Why was it not included? Because in C++, in particular, it causes so many headaches. Java is designed to be a simple language to use and understand, and multiple inheritance as implemented in a strongly-typed language generally is not.
A Java class can have many different runtime types by implementing many different interfaces. This is one half of the "multiple inheritance equation" --- the one that's important from a design perspective. If you don't understand why this is more important than the other half -- the "inheriting actual code" part -- then you will learn with some experience.
But in any case, a Java class can inherit many types by implementing interfaces. To reuse code from multiple classes, though, you have to use delegation -- i.e., keep a member of another class, and forward method calls to it, rather than trying to extend it.