Re: What is OOP?

wij <wyniijj5@gmail.com> writes:

In response to the question of the subject line...

Just because a program is being written in a language that has
functions doesn't mean that what is being done is functional
programming.

Just because a program is being written in a language that has
classes and objects doesn't mean that what is being done is
object-oriented programming.

More than anything else object-oriented programming is a mindset
or a programming methodology.  It helps if the language being
used supports classes, etc, but the methodology can be used even
in languages that don't have them.

A quote:

    My guess is that object-oriented programming will be in the
    1980s what structured programming was in the 1970s.
    Everyone will be in favor of it.  Every manufacturer will
    promote his products as supporting it.  Every manager will
    pay lip service to it.  Every programmer will practice it
    (differently).  And no one will know just what it is.

That paragraph is taken from a paper written more than 40 years
ago.  The prediction came true with a vengeance, even more than
the author expected.  Most of what has been written about object
oriented programming was done by people who didn't understand it.

Two more quotes, these from Alan Kay:

    I invented the term "Object Oriented Programming," and C++
    is not what I had in mind.

    Though Smalltalk's structure allows the technique now known
    as data abstraction to be easily (and more generally)
    employed, the entire thrust of its design has been to
    supersede the concept of data and procedures entirely;  to
    replace these with the more generally useful notions of
    activity, communication, and inheritance.