Object-Oriented Programming groups related data and functions together in a class, generally making data private and only some functions public. Restricting access decreases coupling and increases cohesion. While it is not a panacea, it has proven to be very effective in reducing the complexity increase with large programs. For small programs may be difficult to see the advantage of OOP over, eg, structured programming because there is little complexity regardless of how it's written. Many of the mechanics of OPP are easy to demonstrate; it is somewhat harder to create small, convincing examples.
OOP is often said to incorporate three techniques: inheritance, encapsulation, and polymorphism. Of these, you should first devote yourself to choosing the right classes (possibly difficult) and getting the encapsulation right (fairly easy). Inheritance and polymorphism are not even present in many programs, so you can ignore them at that start.
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2004-07-29
