OOP Terminology

Along with each programming revolution comes a new set of terminology. There are some new OOP concepts, but many have a simple analog in pre-OOP practice.

OOP Term	Definition
method	Same as function, but the typical OO notation is used for the call, ie, f(x,y) is written x.f(y) where x is an object of class that contains this f method.
send a message	Call a function (method).
instantiate	Allocate a class/struct object (ie, instance) with new.
class	A struct with both data and functions.
object	Memory allocated to a class/struct. Often allocated with new.
member	A field or function is a member of a class if it's defined in that class
constructor	Function-like code that initializes new objects (structs) when they instantiated (allocated with new).
destructor	Function-like code that is called when an object is deleted to free any resources (eg, memory) that is has pointers to.
inheritance	Defining a class (child) in terms of another class (parent). All of the public members of the public class are available in the child class.
polymorphism	Defining functions with the same name, but different parameters.
overload	A function is overloaded if there is more than one definition. See polymorphism.
override	Redefine a function from a parent class in a child class.
subclass	Same as child, derived, or inherited class.
superclass	Same as parent or base class.
attribute	Same as data member or member field.