OOPS Part I -- Understanding the Object Oriented Programming

This chapter is a basic introduction to object-oriented programming. It introduces you to some of the basic concepts and terms you need to know as you get a handle on the specific details of how object-oriented programming works.

What Is Object-Oriented Programming?

The term object-oriented programming means many different things. But at its heart, object-oriented programming is a type of computer programming based on the premise that all programs are essentially computer-based simulations of real-world objects or abstract concepts.

For example: Flight-simulator programs attempt to mimic the behavior of real airplanes. Some do an amazingly good job; military and commercial pilots train on them.

Understanding Objects

Objects-both in the real world and in the world of programming-are entities that have certain basic characteristics. The following sections describe some of the more important of these characteristics: identity, type, state, and behavior.

Objects have identity

Every object in an object-oriented program has an identity. In other words, every occurrence of a particular type of object-called an instance-can be distinguished from every other occurrence of the same type of object, as well as from objects of other types.

Objects have type

Object-oriented programming lets you assign names to the different kind of objects in a program. Types are defined by classes. So when you create an object from a type, you're saying that the object is of the type specified by the class. For example, the following statement creates an object of type Invoice:

Invoice i = new Invoice();

In this case, the identity of this object (that is, its address in memory) is assigned to the variable i, which the compiler knows can hold references to objects of type Invoice.

Objects have state

The type of an object determines what attributes the object has. Thus, all objects of a particular type have the same attributes. However, they don't necessarily have the same values for those attributes.
The combination of the values for all the attributes of an object is called the object's state. Unlike its identity, an object's state can and usually does change over its lifetime.

Here are a few more interesting details about object state:

• Some of the attributes of an object are publicly known, but others can be private. The private attributes may be vital to the internal operation of the object, but no one outside of the object knows they exist. They're like your private thoughts: They affect what you say and do, but nobody knows them but you.
• The state of an object is represented by class variables, which are called fields. A public field is a field that's declared with the public keyword so the variable can be visible to the outside world.
  

Objects have behaviour

Another characteristic of objects is that they have behavior, which means they can do things. Like state, the specific behavior of an object depends on its type. But unlike state, the behavior isn't different for each instance of a type.

Another way to say that objects have behavior is to say they provide services that can be used by other objects. The behavior of an object is provided by its methods.

OOPS Part II -- Pillars of OOPS -- Inheritance, Polymorphism, Encapsulation