Question

Can anyone provide me with general guidelines as to when I should use overridable methods such as “OnMyEvent”, and when I should use events such as “MyEvent” in C#?

Are there any general design principles that can define what to use?

Answer 1

Events are great for when you have a “has a” while overrides are a lot better for situations where you have a “is a” relationship

For an example, if you have a base class animal, it is likely the case that each animal will have its own way of moving. however every animal is in some way going to want to move.

Now think of a class person that may ‘have’ a pet animal. in this case the Person might react to the animal moving but it wouldn’t actually handle the animal moving.