On the OpenSky blog today there's a new post about object oriented development and class structure. More specifically about how you should use interfaces and abstract classes if you want to truly lock down the methods of your classes.

Every class has an interface, every class can be typehinted as a method argument, typehint lets you specify the collaborator requirements. Not every typehint is the same.

He includes an example of how, despite a "BankAccount" type hint, classes for different types of accounts can be created and methods from the parent can be overwritten. To help remedy the situation, he shows a more structured example that uses interfaces/an abstract class to define the BankAccount structure, setting requirements on the child class functionality.